Nature Study in Rural Schools

Abstract

EVERYONE who is familiar with the work of our Education Department knows that the Inspectors are given explicit instructions to discountenance the unintelligent teaching of science, and to do everything in their power to encourage the observation and study of natural objects and phenomena. The “object lessons,” which are given in the lower standards, are intended to lead the pupils to use their eyes and compare one thing with another; and though they have become in some schools of too detailed a character to develop the faculties of observation and reasoning, the fault is chiefly due to the fact that many teachers are not observers of nature themselves, and are therefore unable to describe natural things except in the language of the text-book. Every effort has, however, been made by the Education Department to show teachers that this is not the kind of teaching intended to be given as object lessons. Several circulars have been issued containing instructions as to what should be done, and the new Board of Education has shown sympathy with the work of arousing interest in nature by issuing a circular, from which the following extracts have been taken, to managers and teachers of rural elementary schools. The issue of this document by Sir G. W. Kekewich at the very commencement of the work of the Board of which he is the secretary, may, we trust, be taken as an indication that increased attention is to be given to the teaching of scientific subjects in elementary schools:—