hood of God. To repeat then, schools should aim to cultivate in all their pupils habits of regularity, punctuality, cheerfulness, obedience, mastery, self-control, unselfishness.

No narrow, exclusive definition of education befits the age and country in which we live. That of Dr. Emerson E. White, I think clearly and forcibly states its true ends and aims.

"Education is any process or act which results in knowledge, power or skill. It includes not only teaching and learning, but all acts, processes and influences which occasion these results, whether as scholarship, culture, habit or character." Note that the true ends of education as laid down by this high and accepted authority are: scholarship, culture, habit, character. To these might be added for the public school a high ideal of citizenship in hearty accord with our democratic institutions.

Time forbids a discussion of all these ends. I have already spoken of habit, permit me for a short time to speak of the last and loftiest, character.

Too long have many schools all over our land been cursed by low ideals. Even to-day, teachers are to be found who feel that they have fully performed their duty when they have given their pupils an ac

quaintance with the required quantum of arithmetic, or Latin, or science. The boy may be profane, but he understands the theory of cube root; he has never learned selfcontrol, but with Caesar he has conquered the Gallic tribes; his honesty is not above suspicion, but he comprehends the binomial theorem; he is impure in thought and act, but he is familiar with the nebular hypothesis; he may be untruthful, but he can talk glibly of volts, ohms, amperes, resistance coils, and Wheatsone bridges. Think you this is the education the times demand?

To shape and strengthen character the work and methods of a school should be adapted to that purpose. To this end courses of study should be framed. These will require the best thought of boards. of education, teachers and superintendents. Then it is to be hoped that along with a knowledge of science, language and mathematics, along with mental acumen, will be acquired the virtues of truthfulness, obedience, industry, honesty, fidelity, justice, conscientiousness, forgiveness, gratitude, purity.

There can be no doubt that if the schools take care to produce "manly men" and "womanly women" that these will be sure to solve many of the vexed questions, social, economic and moral that are troubling the world.

To live rightly is to live in right relation to God, nature, and our fellows. Then if, as Spencer says, it is the office of education to prepare for right living, is it wise or reasonable to ignore or neglect the nature work in the primary grades? If by nature study we meant only the acquisition of a few facts, we might safely postpone the study for more mature years, providing we were sure of having the pupils in school then, but nature work, rightly taught, means the formation of habits of observation and discrimination. It means the cultivation of the heart as well as the head. It means the multiplying of one's resources and power of enjoyment an hundredfold if carried on in the impressionable period of life. It is the ear of childhood that is best fitted to "list to Nature's teaching." Ours are dulled by the din of traffic, the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of men, and jarring discords from within.

Do you know why I never find four-leaved clovers, or cocoons, and but seldom a bird's nest? Because I never had my attention called to them in the days when I had leisure to see. This lack in my early training can never be met by any book knowledge obtainable since. It is a mistake to think that because one

has nature all about him he must necessarily know her ways. I never knew even a country boy to make careful, accurate, systematic observation, or even obtain much general information, of the world. about him unaided by home or school. One reason for this is the unsatisfactory answers he usually receives in his early quest for knowledge of these things, and so, not being able to understand the most common phenomena about him, he soon forms the habit of taking it all as a matter of course, and thinking very little about it. Later the schools teach him the lazy habit of going to books for all information, so if the time ever comes when he desires to know about birds he buys and reads a book on birds, or if he wants to know more about plant life he studies Gray's "How Plants Grow", and flatters himself that he is studying nature.

The moral tone of every school will be greatly raised by the introduction of the nature studies into its curriculum. It gives life and interest to all school work, puts teachers and pupils in loving sympathy as no dull routine work can; gives the children thoughts of the good, true and beautiful, thus crowding out the low, mischievous and idle; leads to reverent, loving knowledge

of the Father of all, and teaches kindness and care for all He has made. Then the fact that the child enters school already interested and curious regarding the world of nature makes this the line of least resistance for him, which is a matter of no little consequence in these early years of difficult beginnings. Why, then, ignore all that in which he is interested to plunge him into that for which he has no use and cares naught? What does he care whether bureau is spelled with an eau or uea; whether three and four are seven or eight unless it is marbles and he is playing for keeps; whether a certain letter begins with the right or left curve, while he does want to know where the rain comes from, what makes the creek so crooked, how plants grow, and where the cricket and earth worm live.

May not the child's idea of relative values be as correct as ours, tinctured with worldly prudence and utilitarianism? It is quite too common for ambitious parents and a few superintendents and high school teachers to ridicule the idea of teaching children to make mud balls, paint butterflies, and make jimcracks out of paper, when they might forsooth be learning the multiplication table or writing their spelling lesson! not realizing that any of us to-day would be willing to give all the multiplication table we ever knew for the ability to model skilfully in clay, paint a but

terfly, or build according to laws of symmetry and beauty. If we had power to do the greater, the less could be learned in any odd hours when needed. Let us not longer ignore the child's natural interests. and bent, but strive to cultivate in him all his God-given powers, rather than to mold him according to our faulty notions.

While in the National Museum last winter I saw an ignorant looking man leading two large, brightlooking boys, possibly of eight and ten years of age. With a tight grip on the hand of each boy the father rushed up and down the halls, looking at all things, but really seeing nothing. The boys hung back, desiring to see things, but when the younger ventured to say, "What is that, papa?" he was silenced with a very emphatic "Now, don't be asking me what things are; I don't know." This in such a bothered, helpless tone, that I pitied father and boys. In my note-book, among mention of other curiosities, I put down: "Blind father leading two wide-awake boys." And I sighed as I thought of the numerous blind leaders not of the blind, but of our bright, wide-awake youth, who are having their eyes closed to the beauties all around them that they may learn books, books, and hear words, words, when the mind and heart are hungry for things. They ask bread and we give them a stone, and then when they acquire something of an appetite for stones, we

turn about and chide them for not liking good, wholesome bread, and for not developing better on their hard fare.

One great difficulty in the way of getting nature work into the schools is that it is not in the teachers. If the teacher is full of this subject you can't keep it out of her school. It will get in in spite of unfavoring boards of education or indifferent superintendents. Teachers not having been taught thus in their early school life do not know how to adapt the knowledge gained from books to the children's needs and comprehension. All honor to the teacher who confesses ignorance but is willing to learn, but only contempt for those who, because they do not know how, declare it is not being and cannot be done.

To those who believe in nature work in the primary grades, but do not know how to teach these subjects to little children, my advice would be begin; begin somewhere, anywhere, only begin. Watch the children. Notice in what they are interested, and begin with that. Take up the first natural object brought by the children into the school room, investigate, question, study; consult encyclopedias, scientific works, and send questions home to parents by the children, and I have no doubt the next magazine or educational paper you take up will have an article on the very subject before you. If it comes too late make a note of it for future use.

If the children do not bring you cocoons, oak-balls, leaves, stones, fruit and flowers, it is because they have never been encouraged to do so. Take the next pretty leaf that you find into the school room and in the first few restless moments, usually taken to crush out all of the play spirit, call their attention to the pretty leaf you found, and see how soon your table will be literally covered with pretty leaves brought by the children. Then, when brought, use them for language work, number lesson, or for seat work. Fasten a bit of golden rod to your waist and it will not be long before some one will bring you a nice large bunch. Then reward them with a beautiful gem or story about the golden rod, and your nature work has begun.

But do you fear there will be a lack of purpose or system in thus following the children's lead? Perhaps it will be so for a time, but you will soon find order coming out of chaos. Their gifts and finds will group themselves around a few main lines and you will soon be able to give subordinate place to that which is not to your purpose. For instance, you will find September the best time to study fruit, which will naturally lead you to the study of fruit trees, their branching and leaves. "Ripe apples and peaches and plums, I am glad when September comes", was our calendar mot"October gave a party, The leaves by hundreds came." Of

to.

course we must study forest trees, with their nuts and different ways of branching in October. Seeds and their distribution follow, taking up, first, seeds in general, their kinds, use, and relation to plant life. The children are always interested in hearing about the seed that must travel, even if they have to steal their rides. Then after making a study of a few types as corn or wheat among grains, and milkweed or thistle among winged seeds, you can go on to preparations for winter made by man, plants and animals. Frost, snow, crystallization, stones and domestic animals can be studied in winter, and the spring brings its own subjects in the growth of bud, leaf, flower, and the coming of the birds and their nest building. And so as the months and seasons roll by, the children will be learning to interpret the tongues in trees, the books in running brooks, the sermons in stones, and to see the good in every thing.

One difficulty the teacher has to meet in the line of work is the desire for tangible results on the part of superintendents, parents, and the teacher herself. The best results in any school work are not those brought out by examinations. They can not be summed up in per cents, but never fear, "after many days thou shalt see of the travail of thy soul and be satisfied." I was so fortunate once as to be in a kindergarten when the children were receiving their first lesson in painting

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with water colors; children four and five years old. The colors were placed on the table and the children shown how to use the brush and paint; that was all. Then a dandelion fast asleep, as the children described it, and one wide awake, were given to each child. The bud was taken first and they were told to look at it, paint the stem, then the other parts. The courage of beginners is marvelous. No one doubted for a moment his ability to do just as told, and no one hesitated for a moment when the opportunity was given. Some of the stems were as wide as your little finger, and parts that should point downward stood bravely up. No fault was found, but their attention kindly called to the difference between theirs and the real dandelions in such a way as to make them eager to try again, seeing where they could do better. I am afraid you would have laughed at the result as shown on paper, but I have no doubt those litte folks went home with a better idea of a dandelion bud than many of us have at this minute, and while the children got a vauable lesson in observation, I got one in methods, and I said, how much better to let them observe the real thing, each for himself, than to have said, "Children, this is the stem, see me paint it; now you do as I do", resulting in a copy of the teacher's painting instead of copying nature. Do not let their bungling attempts and