Nature Teaching

Abstract

THIS little book forms a welcome change frorn the many appearing under similar titles in that it is avowedly based upon experiments, and treats of things about which the writers really know and have not merely read up. Dealing in the main with the life of the plant, it describes a simple series of experiments within the capacity of an elementary school or an evening continuation class, illustrating the function of seed, root, stem, leaf, &c., and amplifying the knowledge thus obtained with further examples drawn from the practice of the garden or the farm. A certain lack of definiteness in the description of experiments militates at times against the spirit in which the book has been conceived; in a subject where everything depends upon the cultivation of accurate observation and rigorous scientific method the authors should not allow themselves to fall into the slipshod generalised accounts of things which are the bane of so much of the current teaching of this nature. For instance, in their account of striking cuttings, the authors do not direct attention to the differences in the management of herbaceous and woody cuttings, the time of year at which they should be struck, and so forth, so that the teacher without experience would be apt to fumble over the matter at first, and would in real life be discouraged from trying any experiments in this particular direction unless he got hold of a gardener to give him some practical advice. However, with this slight drawback, the book is admirably designed for the teacher who wishes to work out an elementary course of instruction for a country school, either as an introduction to practical life or to a more special study of agriculture and horticulture.

Nature Teaching.

By F. Watts W. G. Freeman. Pp. xi + 193. (London: Murray, 1904.) Price 3s. 6d.