make experiments on leaves. In wet weather when we cannot go into the garden we find the laboratory window-boxes useful, as in them pollination and assimilation experiments can be arranged. Most of the Botany gardens are either order-beds, or beds in which pollination and assimilation experiments take place; but there are a few others, for example those in which soil experiments are made. Each year we find that something more is needed in the Botany garden, and each year something is added. Last year climbing plants received special attention, and now the girls own plants climbing by twining stems, hooks, roots, stem tendrils, leaf tendrils, or sensitive petioles.

Lately we have been specially interested in studying trees. It had been a drawback that in studying the structure of buds, methods of branching, &c., we had no better materials than cut specimens or trees seen on excursions. This year there has been planted in the garden a specimen of every common English tree not already possessed by us, and we hope that in future the girls will draw different stages of development of the buds of oak, beech, ash, sycamore, maple, willow, &c., while still on the trees.

Two years ago we thought of making a pond for water plants, but this was judged inadvisable, and instead of a pond in the garden a tank is provided in our new botanical laboratory.

As gardening is not a regular branch of the school work, and no school time is allowed for it, the work must be voluntary; but there are many applications for Botany gardens, and great enthusiasm is shown. The school is a day-school, so digging, planting, weeding, and watering are done in the dinner hour, or in the hour immediately following afternoon school. The practical work appeals to many who would not be interested in books, and in several cases the gardens have been the means of arousing a girl's interest in plant life. In fact, we have found the out-of-door work of such value that we hope to extend it, and allow more and more of the school work in Botany to depend on the observations and experiments made by the girls in their gardens.

Excursions. The school excursion is highly valued as a means of stimulating observation in the field, but we are inclined to think that for want of attention to details its benefits are often imperfectly attained. Excursions are sometimes wholly unprofitable. The leader stops now and then to pick a flower, names it, mentions, perhaps, some curious feature which it exhibits, pops it into his vasculum, and walks on. Most of the party are not within hearing: they have no part assigned to them, and they bring back nothing more valuable than a few dying flowers, with a fleeting memory of some of their names. On a botanical excursion we ought to remark not only flowers and the peculiarities which distinguish them, but the ripening of fruits, the dispersal of seeds, and defences against scorching sun or winter cold. It is only by visiting the same plant at different seasons of the year that we become acquainted with what may be called its biography. To insure the active co-operation of all the members of the class, we have found it useful to distribute a cyclostyled programme, describing, but not as a rule naming, things which are to be looked for.

Example: A Moorland Walk.

1. Find several plants with rolled leaves.

2. Find a plant whose leaves are converted into spines. Look out for seedlings of the same plant,

3. Bring leaves of three moorland ferns. Can two distinct kinds of leaves ?

you find one which has

4. Find a moorland grass with fine wiry leaves. Can you find more than one answering to this description?

5. Find a moss which is very plentiful in swampy parts of the moor. Find another which is plentiful in dry places, and occurs in two distinct forms.

6. There is a low plant on the moor which is now in flower. It grows in large patches, and from some of these patches we kick up dust with our feet, while other patches yield no dust. Bring specimens of each

sort.

7. How many years old is the biggest stem of ling which you can find?

The objects brought can be named and discussed at convenient haltingplaces. The school excursion should have a definite aim lest it degenerate into the raid upon wild flowers. It is a good plan to follow it up within a very few days by a lesson on the same objects.

Collecting. We have a poor opinion of drying plants as an incentive to the study of Botany. The dried plant is an inadequate substitute for the living and growing plant, and finds its principal use in the authentication of botanical discoveries made in distant lands. The habit of collecting plants for the herbarium may be hostile to close study of the environment, and confirm the pernicious belief that the thing of chief importance is to be able to name a plant as soon as you see it. One lamentable result of the rapacity of collectors is that our native flora has become sensibly impoverished of late years. There is little gain to science by way of compensation. Amateur herbarium botanists have not, in our own time and country, done much to solve important questions of any kind, and they often propagate the misleading notion that rare species are better worth attention than common ones. The rarity of a plant is a reason, not for gathering a flower and drying it, but for letting it alone, unless, indeed, you can accomplish some important and unselfish purpose only by its sacrifice.

The museum, like the herbarium, may easily be perverted from its proper function and made a means of oppressing the intelligence of young persons. A vast multiplicity of objects bewilders instead of stimulating the observing faculty. We do not mean for a moment to disparage museums. They are indispensable to the special student, who, as science advances, demands that the museum shall become ever more complete and more rigidly systematic. But the wants of the specialist and of the schoolboy are so dissimilar that they cannot be met by the same collection. A school will be fortunate if it possesses a few striking objects of nature or art, such as a Roman altar, two or three Greek coins, a fine ichthyosaur, a mammoth's tusk, and the like; but long series of woods, seeds, moths, fossils, and minerals are simply dispiriting to the beginner. Schoolboys can do nothing with them except make inferior copies of the same kind. It ought to be needless to remark that the needs and also the powers of the schoolboy are altogether unlike those of the adult specialist. The specialist attends to few things and seeks to master those in every detail. Precise language and minutely accurate knowledge are indispensable to him. He has chosen his walk of life, and knows that his strength and usefulness largely depend upon his power of concentration. The schoolboy is untrained, and his future vocation often unknown. Now

is the time for him to learn the scope of various sciences, literatures, and histories. But the workshop routine of the professed botanist may do the schoolboy harm instead of good.

In our opinion both herbaria and museums are indispensable to scientific progress. They have their uses even to children, and many naturalists have begun by collecting. But there are things more advantageous and more appropriate to the first stage of botanical study than the accumulation of a pile of wild flowers, dried and named. School collections, illustrating the dispersal of fruits and seeds, the shapes of leaves in connection with bud folding and exposure of the largest possible surface to light, resistance to drought or cold, &c., may be made to gratify the collecting instinct in a harmless way, and at the same time to promote definite inquiries. It is the mechanical habit of collecting for selfish ends, and without any scientific purpose, that we wish to discourage.

Systematic Botany in the School. The time to introduce systematic Botany into the school course is the time when the need for it is felt. Good teaching will soon make it desirable that the class should be able to recognise such families as grasses and leguminous plants. The families, introduced to notice one by one and illustrated by fresh examples, soon become interesting, and even children delight in the power to run down the easier flowers. Simple descriptions of the families of flowering plants, in which the Latin words are cut down to a minimum, will greatly promote the attractiveness and intelligibility of early lessons in classification. We have no high opinion of the description in technical language, once so strongly recommended, nor of the filling up of schedules. All this is apt to divert attention from things of greater consequence, and to stupefy the docile, while it alienates pupils of active disposition. One independent observation, one carefully conducted experiment, is worth sheaves of schedules.

The Teacher to devise his own Course.-It is natural that the teacher should seek the help of books in preparing his lessons on plants. Such help only becomes mischievous when he becomes dependent upon others alike for information and method. Servile reproduction of another man's lessons is a proof of incompetence. Not only do we maintain that the language and the selection of facts should be the teacher's own, but we would have him plan his own course of work. The unenterprising teacher may look upon the detailed syllabus as a safeguard, but to a teacher of any spirit it is intolerable tyranny. The low condition of elementary science in our schools is largely due to unwise examining. The detailed syllabus, the worship of technical language, the authoritative enunciation of general principles to pupils who have no knowledge of concrete facts, and the practice-still widespread of endeavouring to learn a science by heart are largely due to the influence of public examinations. Liberty for the teacher is essential to progress on good lines. How to reconcile liberty with tests of efficiency is a difficult but by no means an insoluble problem.

Microscopes in School Work.-The appliances required for junior classes in Botany are few and simple. Much may be done with common knives, needles, and simple lenses. When the dissection of plants becomes a regular occupation, an inexpensive dissecting microscope such as that sold by Leitz of Wetzlar for 88. will fulfil many requirements. Still simpler home-made stands will answer the purpose. It is good for any teacher who has a mechanical turn to devise his own microscope. To make

them really useful there should be at least one to every pair of pupils. The compound microscope should never appear in junior classes, and we are inclined to think that it will be best to reserve it for the highest form in a secondary school.

Histological details and a knowledge of microscopic plants are often expected of pupils who have never had the use of a microscope. This inevitably leads to unreal teaching.

Other Teaching Appliances.-Diagrams and lantern slides are often made too much of in school work. They should be mere accessories which have their uses in particular cases. A good teacher will not depend upon them, and will usually prefer the drawing made in class. To make the most of simple means is an education in itself.

The Teaching of Science in Elementary Schools.-Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor H. E. ARMSTRONG (Secretary), Lord AVEBURY, Professor W. R. DUNSTAN, Mr. GEORGE GLADSTONE, Sir PHILIP MAGNUS, Sir H. E. Roscoe, Professor A. SMITHELLS, and Professor S. P. THOMPSON.

DR. GLADSTONE's death last year, at the age of seventy-five years, has removed one of the most familiar, sympathetic, and welcomed figures from the meetings of the British Association. The services which he rendered to the cause of elementary education, especially in London, although well known to his friends, have yet to be fully appreciated. Elected a member in 1873, he retired from the School Board for London only in 1894; throughout this time he was one of its most active members, making himself specially prominent as an advocate of spelling reform, of object-lesson teaching, of manual training and of the teaching of Elementary Science. Perhaps the most enduring testimony of the interest Dr. Gladstone took in elementary education is afforded by the unbroken series of reports, commencing in 1881, presented by your Committee. These reports were almost wholly inspired by him, when not his actual work; to those who knew him, their generally hopeful, indeed optimistic, tone affords good evidence of his guiding hand. The influence which he exercised on the London School Board-the value on such a body of even a single staunch advocate of a policy-is, perhaps, best shown by the fact that after his retirement the Board soon ceased to maintain the teaching of Science in their schools on the level of efficiency which it was beginning to assume, and only last year woke up to the fact that the subject was one requiring special attention. There could be no better illustration of the haphazard manner in which it has been our custom to conduct education.

It was felt last year that the Committee had in great measure served its purpose-that, in view of the changes which have taken place in the educational policy of the country, if any such Committee were to be again appointed, it should be a new one having a more definite line of action marked out for it. It was, therefore, agreed that a final report should be presented this year. In view of the grievous loss which has deprived them of their Chairman, your Committee feel that they cannot bring their labours to a more fitting conclusion than by calling special attention to the work which will ever serve to recall Dr. Gladstone's services to educational science in connection with the Association.

Dr. Gladstone first brought the subject of scientific teaching under notice at Sheffield in 1879 in a paper read in Section F (Economic Science), in which he referred to the action taken by the School Board for London. At the same meeting Mr. Moss, clerk to the Sheffield School Board, and Mr. Hance, clerk to the Liverpool School Board, described the steps that had been taken to introduce teaching in Elementary Science into the schools in their districts. Mr. Moss spoke of the need for really good teachers. Mr. Hance described the manner in which demonstrations were given by peripatetic teachers.

Dr. Gladstone and his friends were evidently alive to the difficulties that would arise in judging of the work done in schools, for at the Sheffield meeting a committee was appointed to consider whether it is important that H.M. Inspectors of Elementary Schools should be appointed with reference to their ability for examining in the scientific specific subjects of the Code in addition to other matters.'

Mr. Mundella was first Chairman of this Committee, Dr. Gladstone being the Secretary. The report, presented at Swansea, referred to the incapacity of the inspectorate to examine in Science and advocated that steps should be taken to secure the appointment of qualified men. The subsequent neglect of Science in elementary schools is in no slight degree due to the fact that this recommendation was neglected.

The Committee was reappointed at Swansea to report on the manner in which rudimentary science should be taught and how examinations should be held therein in elementary schools.'

In their report, presented at York in 1881, after considering the manner in which rudimentary Science was taught, recommendations were made

As to object lessons.-That these should be taken into account in estimating the teaching given in an infant school.

As to class subjects. That these should be given preferably through illustrated oral lessons rather than by reading.

As to specific Science subjects. That a knowledge of the facts of nature is an essential part of the education of every child and that it should be given continuously during the whole of school life from the baby class to the highest standard. Of course in early years this teaching will be very rudimentary; but by developing the child's powers of perception and comparison it will prepare it for a gradual extension of such knowledge. They consider also that the early teaching must be very general, while the later may be more specific.

Up to the present day this last recommendation has been almost entirely disregarded.

The Committee urged, with reference to the prominence given to English grammar in the Code, that the knowledge of Nature should be put on an equal footing in the schools with the analysis of the mother tongue.

Mr. Mundella had just laid upon the table of the House of Commons certain proposals for revision of the Code; the Committee was, therefore, reappointed in 1881 to 'watch and report on the workings of the proposed revised new Code and of other legislation affecting the teaching of Science in elementary schools.'

Desiring that the knowledge of Nature should be more effectually encouraged as a class subject, the Secretary, at the request of the