a small wood or meadow to find out what flowers are there. The pupils should be dispersed throughout the field to hunt for specimens and to meet at a known signal to compare notes.
SUGGESTIONS FOR UNGRADED SCHOOLS
1. The teacher may take all the classes, choosing an object of study from which he can teach lessons suitable to all ages, a bird's nest, for example.
2. In many sections, the little ones are dismissed at 3.30 p.m. Opportunity is thus given for an excursion with the seniors.
3. The older pupils may be assigned work and left in charge of a monitor, elected by themselves, who shall be responsible for their conduct, while the teacher is working outside with the lower Forms.
4. Boys who are naturally interested in outdoor work should be encouraged to show the others anything of interest they may have found.
5. An occasional Saturday excursion may be arranged.
Discipline.—The teacher should insist on making the excursion a serious part of the school work, not merely recreation. School-room behaviour cannot be expected, but the boisterous conduct of the playground should give place to earnest expectancy. The pupils should keep within sound of the teacher's voice (a sharp whistle may be used) and should promptly respond to every call. Topics of conversations should as far as possible be restricted to those pertaining to the object of the excursion or related matters.
In visiting woods, children should be trained to study flowers in their environment and leave them there, plucking or digging for none except for some excellent reason. The same respect should be shown to birds and their nests, and to insects, and all other living things encountered.
THE TEACHER'S EXCURSIONS
As soon as possible after coming to a section, the teacher should acquaint himself with the woods, groves, streams, or other haunts that may provide him with material for his indoor or outdoor work. He can then direct the pupils effectively. The teacher should go over the route of an excursion shortly before it takes place. This prevents waste of time in looking for the objects that he wishes his pupils to see. If the teacher wishes to increase his love for nature, he must take many walks without his pupils.
The school garden offers a partial solution of the difficulties mentioned above. It brings a large amount of material to the doors of the school. Plants of the farm or the garden may be studied under various changeable conditions, and it will be seen that insect pests, weeds, and fungous diseases follow the lessons on plants, while lessons on birds and toads follow those on insects. With sections of the garden devoted to the cultivation of wild flowers, ferns, and forest trees, the specially organized excursion will become less of a necessity, although it will still continue to be a valuable factor in Nature Study work.
After an excursion is over, it should be discussed in class. The various facts learned should be reviewed and related. If any pupils have made inaccurate observations, they should be required to observe again to correct their errors. Finally, the excursion may form the subject of a composition.
A TYPE EXCURSION
A Bird's Nest.—The children have been instructed to study the meadow-lark, beginning about March twenty-first. While engaged in this work, a nest is discovered near the school. The teacher is informed and the pupils are conducted to the spot.
What is growing in the field? Is there a long or a short growth? Did the mother bird make much noise as she rose from the nest? Did this help to reveal its presence? Is the nest easy to see? The class will halt a few paces from it and try to find it. How many eggs? Their colour? Note the arch of grass so beautifully concealing the nest.
Returning to school, the facts observed are reviewed. The pupils may then express themselves by written composition or by drawings, paintings, or modellings of the nest, the eggs, or the surroundings. Frequent visits to the nest should not be made, and the pupils should be warned not to disturb the bird, as she may desert the nest on slight provocation.
A second excursion may be made, when the eggs are hatched, to see the young birds.
A Wasp's Nest.—A nest having been discovered, the pupils note how it is suspended and how it is situated with regard to concealment or to protection from rain, its colour, the material of the nest, and the position of the entrance. Is the opening ever deserted? How many wasps enter and how many leave the nest in a minute? Try to follow one and watch what he does. Wasps may be found biting wood from an old board fence. This they chew into pulp, and from this pulp their paper is made. Get the children to verify this by observations. If the nest is likely to become a nuisance, smoke out the wasps, take the nest carefully down, and use it for indoor study, examining the inside of the nest to ascertain the nature and the structure of the comb which, in this case is entirely devoted to larvæ.
COLLECTIONS
General school collections of such objects as noxious weeds, weed seeds, wild flowers, noxious insects, leaves of forest trees, rocks or stones of the locality, etc., should be undertaken.
All the pupils should contribute as many specimens as possible to each collection and should assist in the work of preparing them.
In addition to the above collections it is advisable that pupils who show special interest in this phase of nature work should be encouraged to make individual collections.
Collections, when properly prepared, have a value within themselves, because of the beauty and variety of the forms that they contain, and also because of their usefulness in illustrating nature lessons and in the identifying of insects, weeds, etc. Nevertheless the chief value of the collection rests in the making of it, because of the training that it gives the collector in carefulness and thoroughness, and also because it causes the child to study natural objects in their natural surroundings.
ANIMAL STUDIES
DOMESTIC ANIMALS
The teacher, before attempting to teach lessons on domestic animals, should carefully consider how his lessons will best fulfil the following important aims:
1. The cultivation of a deeper sympathy for, and a more complete understanding of, farm animals.
2. The development of more kindly treatment of domestic animals through awakened sympathy and more intelligent understanding.
3. Implanting the idea that the best varieties are the most interesting and profitable.
The following domestic animals are suggested as being suitable for study: horse, cow, sheep, dog, cat, goose, duck, hen.
There are two practical methods of observation work; namely, home observation and class-room observation.
The observation work on some of the animals named must of necessity be done out of school. In this the teacher can direct the efforts of the pupils by assigning to them definite problems to be solved by their study of the animals.
The results of their observations can be discussed in the class in lessons of ten
