210 Agricultural Education and Forestry Exhibition , 1906. 
Board of Education, and the Rev. A. Thornley, Superintendent 
of Nature Study under the Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire 
Education Committees. The latter took personal charge of 
this section during the Show, and rendered valuable services 
by explaining to visitors the character of the work done and 
the educational objects sought to be attained. The counties 
from which exhibits were sent included Cambridge, Cumber- 
land, Durham, Derby, Essex, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, 
Stafford, Essex, and Worcester. In addition to specimens of 
exercise-books, diaries, note-books, calendars, and other teaching 
apparatus, there was a large variety of mounted specimens of 
natural objects, the work done revealing great intelligence 
and enthusiasm on the part of both teachers and pupils. The 
collections included local flowering plants, intended to 
familiarise pupils with the wild flowers of their districts and 
to develop taste and manipulative skill ; leaves facilitating the 
recognition of common trees (oak, ash, hazel, sycamore, beech, 
willow, guelder rose, hawthorn, &c.) ; fruits of wild flowers 
and of wind-fertilised flowers of trees ; fossils ; insect pests 
(black-currant gall-mite, click beetle and wireworms, aphis, 
cockchafer grubs, slugs, caterpillars, earwigs, &c.) ; specimens 
illustrating life-histories of insects and animals (wireworm, 
currant moth, frog, toad, &c.) ; and specimens illustrating the 
germination of seeds and the growth of plants. Some water- 
colour drawings made direct from nature of common subjects 
(apple blossom, blackthorn, geranium, flowering currant, &c.), 
were beautifully executed by elementary school children. 
More advanced botanical studies are undertaken by pupils 
in secondary schools, and from these some excellent work 
was sent up by girls. They included collections illustrating 
the classification of local plants into flowers of the hedgerow, 
plants of a wood, water plants, &c., and studies of common 
trees (walnut, laburnum, &c.), showing seedlings, branches, 
buds, flowers, fruits, seeds in pods, opening of pods, and the 
wood in sections, with interior and exterior of bark, &c. 
Within recent years, school gardens have become an 
important feature of rural elementary schools. The Stafford- 
shire County Council undertook*the illustration of this branch, 
and exhibited collections of tools, seeds, and apparatus as 
supplied to school gardens. They also displayed a map 
showing that in Staffordshire gardening classes are held in 
seventy-nine day schools, in thirty evening schools, and in 
two grammar schools. 
It was probably a revelation to many of the visitors to the 
Derby Show that such important educational developments 
are taking place in our rural elementary and secondary schools 
under the fostering guidance of the Board of Education. 
