in regard to natural phenomena, rather than to present systematized bodies of fact and doctrines.

The following scheme is suggested, subject to changes and variations according to the conditions and surroundings of the schools:

In the primary schools and in the lower grades of grammar schools the study of plants and animals should be the main part of the scientific work; the botanical instruction should commence with such simple exercises as drawing and describing different forms of leaves, and should gradually advance to the easier and more conspicuous flowers, and later to the more obscure and difficult forms of flowers, the fruits and seeds.

The zoological instruction in the lower schools should not attempt a systematic survey of the whole animal kingdom, but attention should be directed chiefly to the most familiar animals, and to those which the pupils can see alive. The common domestic mammals should first be studied, and later the birds, the lower vertebrates, the insects, crustaceans, and mollusks. While the range of zoological instruction must be limited as regards the number of forms studied, these few familiar forms should be so compared with each other as to give the pupils, very early, some conception of the main lines of biological study-morphology, physiology, taxonomy.

Special prominence should be given to the study of plants and animals which are useful to man in any way; and the teacher may advantageously, from time to time, give familiar talks in regard to useful products of vegetable or animal origin, and the processes of their manufacture.

Attention should also be given to the more obvious characteristics of the kind of minerals and rocks common in the region in which any school is situated, and to such geological phenomena as are comparatively simple and easily observed.

A most important feature of the scientific instruction in the lower grades should be to encourage the pupils to collect specimens of all sorts of natural objects, and to make those specimens the subject of object lessons. The curiosity of the children will thereby be rationally cultivated and guided.

The rudiments of the subject of physiology and hygiene should be taught in the primary and grammar schools.

Exceedingly rudimentary courses in physics and chemistry may be introduced in the grammar schools, to enable the intelligent study of physical geography and physiology.

This scheme does not differ essentially from the plan pursued in most schools where science-teaching has been introduced and carried on as a regular feature; but it may be a satisfaction to teachers and principals to find how closely the opinion of men who represent one of the foremost scientific societies in the country, agree with their own ideas concerning this matter of science-training in common schools.

To be of use to the teacher to whom the subject is entirely new, a detailed plan of proceedings should be given, and methods suggested. This would

properly form the subject of a manual of instruction, or could be presented in a school of methods, but cannot be undertaken in an address. A short outline may be attempted of a course which has been tried and attended by good results.

The leading thought in devising this course was to develop successively (1) observation, (2) description, (3) investigation, (4) reasoning, (5) general information.

Take for instance the lessons on plants: in the primary grade not more is attempted than observation of main features, with the simplest oral description. The science lessons constitute a part of the general object lessons, and help not only in forming perceptions of number, form, position, color, etc., but direct the attention of the child early to the beauties and wonders of nature. In the intermediate grade, when the scholars have learned to write, they are led to observe and describe systematically. The leaf forms an admirable object for a beginning. The simplest leaves are simple enough not to discourage the untrained powers; from these the exercises may proceed to such a variety of form and features that the pupil's vocabulary is greatly enriched and his power of expression greatly strengthened. Technical terms should be used only where no adequate common term exists. Oral description, written description, and drawing should be equally practiced; the first two should be required in concise and clear sentences; incomplete, ungrammatical expressions are too much indulged in, too much overlooked, in some of our schools. Pupils who express their ideas clearly at the first attempt are an exception. Drawing is as great a help to correct perception of a thing as it is to the description of a thing.

During the exercises on leaves the pupils are encouraged to collect and press leaves of all kinds, and to preserve them in a leaf album in which they are arranged, attached in some manner, and described.

The next step is investigation; the scholars are provided with seeds, beans, peas and corn, which they examine and plant. The seeds and their parts and the plants at different stages of growth are drawn and described in a special note-book. Onion sets and potato tubers are studied in the same manner. In winter, branches are collected, and their bark, wood, and pith, their buds, rings, and leaf-scars examined and described. They are placed in jars of water to watch the opening of the buds, and their development into branches or flowers.

Before this time the scholars have found out, or ought to have found out. that every part of a plant has some office to fulfill, and that the use or the reason of many peculiarities in plants can be explained; the reasoning powers must now be brought into action; there is a how and a what for and a wherefore to every object in nature, and to every part of an object, and the scholars should be encouraged to inquire into the reasons, uses, causes, and effects.

The study of some typical flowers may follow; it should be begun in the spring. There may be a flower day every week or every two weeks, each

scholar wearing a buttonhole bouquet of the flowers to be studied; a spring beauty day, a trillium day, a violet day, a dandelion day. Here the skill acquired in observation, description, and reasoning, is brought to a fine test.

Grammar scholars may also be required to get some general information concerning some of the most interesting or important plants. This means information concerning their properties, their uses as food plants, as furnishing material for clothing, for building, for dyestuffs. The scholars should be permitted to get the material for this exercise from any source at their command; for, after the scholar has been trained in the habit of independent observation, he should learn how to search for and to use the existing sources of information. The topics chosen are first outlined in the class, and then are to form subjects for compositions.*

Lessons on stones may be arranged on the same plan. First observation (assisted by comparison), then description, investigation, reasoning. For the last, the geological formations of the surroundings generally present excellent material. Information, interesting and useful, can be gained in preparing compositions on "Useful Metals," "Precious Stones," "Stones used by the Sculptor," "Rocks used for Building," etc. I have attempted an outline for the study of stones in school, which appeared in the February and March numbers of the New York School Journal of the present year.†

Concerning the animal kingdom also a few suggestions may suffice: in the primary classes, the cat, the dog, and the rabbit, which play such a prominent part in our charts, could be used for more purposes than to teach to read or spell. The rearing of caterpillars, beetle larvæ, pollywogs, gives a chance for investigation. For observation, description and information, composition topics may be chosen, such as these: "Our Pets at Home," "Animals on a Farm," "The Hunter's Game, "The Menagerie," "Life in the Meadow," "Life in the Pond," "Life in a Rotten Log," etc.

tent.

Physiology should be taught to a small extent, but hygiene to a large exThe teacher should keep in mind that to know the number and names of bones and muscles is of very little use to the child; whereas to know the laws of health, the precautions against disease, the conditions for a sound and healthy body, is most important and valuable knowledge, a knowledge which will be useful to the pupils throughout their lives.

For the success of these lessons it is necessary that the teacher be clear in his mind what the children are to gain by them and how they are to gain it; that the teacher prepare himself for each lesson, and take care that sufficient material and the right kind is provided. The material must be in the hands of the pupils, and they must do the investigating. The lessons should not turn into play, but each one should require a stimulating mental effort on the part of the pupil. As to the time to be devoted to science lessons, it is

Helps for teachers: Youmans' 1st and 2d book in Botany: Gray's "How Plants Grow."

The teacher will find valuable aid in Prof. Winchell's book on Elementary Geology. I may modestly mention my “Course of Mineralogy for Young People."

difficult to prescribe a certain amount or limit; this depends upon the condition of the class and the ability of the teacher. Just as much of these lessons should be introduced as can be done without neglecting any of the other important studies.

But it must be a poor system and a poor school where no time can be spared for the study of nature. We cannot afford at the present stage of education to ignore nature and the assistance it can lend to our work. To say that nature offers the most convenient, the most efficient means for the development of the powers of observation and reasoning, is now but to express a truism. The child is hungry for a knowledge of things that surround it; more hungry than it is to learn to read, to write, to cipher. If the parent and the teacher refuse to satisfy this appetite, it will cease to crave for this most wholesome food. But if it is wisely provided with the courted nourishment, if it is allowed to relish the feast which nature has prepared for it, its mind will soon thrive on it; it will grow and develop, and derive health and strength from it.

Love for investigating nature begets love for the beautiful, love for growth, love for order, admiration for wise laws, and perfect organism. It is a love which at first seems instinctive; if rightly fostered it becomes intellectual, and then it will never die, but continue to grow, and will be a potent factor in forming the character, and in the happiness, the culture, of man or woman.

You cannot afford to stunt, to suppress the first eager promptings of the child to investigate, to learn about the objects of nature. The leaf, the flower, the pebble, the shell will be the objects of interest and study for the child. Later on, the thoughts, the investigations will take a wider, a deeper scope; the history of this old earth, the history of man, natural and intellectual, will occupy the mind, and this will lead further on to the contemplation of the distant stars, the immeasurable universe and its eternal laws, a study which, as no other, tends to ennoble man, to elevate his mind above the petty passions and trivial whimsicalities of life, and to fill him with sublime emotion and exalted conception of creation and Creator.

This growth does not proceed from the study of arithmetic, nor from the skill acquired in reading and writing. It proceeds naturally, and harmoniously, and organically from the study of nature, systematically pursued.

Can you afford to stifle the instinctive longings of the child for such study? To narrow or thwart the possibilities for a development that leads man to the highest realms of human thought? Can you tell me a study which in an equal measure satisfies and stimulates ever anew the curiosity of the child, supplies fascinating occupation to the youth who in his superabundance of animal force needs a task that taxes his physical and mental energies, and gives food for thought to the man and woman, which lends new aspects to the otherwise monotonous task of maintaining existence, and makes life worth living?

The training which the study of nature affords is twofold: training of the

senses, training of the intellect, perception and reasoning. The perceptive faculties of the child are active, acute, therefore easily developed; the reasoning power is unripe, dormant, and can only be gradually drawn out and strengthened. This fact indicates the method to be pursued. Let the child observe, compare, investigate, and lead him to reason according to his growing power. First the what, and then the why and wherefore.

The savage and the untrammeled but unguided boy are both students of nature; the first from necessity, the second from natural love (most probably inherited from his savage ancestor) for roaming in the wildwood, robbing nests, hunting and fishing. Their perception is very keen; they know the bird by the note, the beast by the track. But, their reason not being developed, their fear and superstition are great, their world is small, lighted by little tapers and ruled by evil and capricious spirits.

The child, however, that has been taught not only to look at the world in which it lives, but to search for the laws and to discover truths, has been enabled to reach a higher sphere of thought, where no fear exists, but the fear of violating the laws of nature, where he feels himself a citizen of an unbounded universe, governed by a ruler too exalted to be properly conceived, too great to be limited by our conceptions of power and wisdom.

OUR BROTHER IN STRIPES, IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

JULIA S. TUTWILER, LIVINGSTON, ALABAMA.

Our "brother in black" has been discussed in an educational point of view until there seems nothing new to be said on the subject; but our brother in stripes has been less favored. This is the fifth annual session of the National Educational Association which I have had the pleasure of attending, and I do not remember that he has ever before been honored with a place on the program.

Those of my audience who have read the late descriptions in the New York World, of the working of the lease system in Georgia, will be filled with horror when I confess that the lease system prevails in Alabama also, as in most of the Southern States. This system has been aptly described as having all the evils of slavery, without one of its ameliorating features-the pride of ownership, self-interest, and inherited affection. The letters from Georgia picture a condition of things unworthy of any people claiming to be civ illzed; and such was the condition in Alabama at one time, but, thank God, not now.

In justice to my State and to other Southern States, I will explain how a system so odious, in all its features, ever became a part of our State machinery.