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truer joy in seeing and a wider range of subjects to see.

To the children in all the standards we gave questions about trees and flowers, asking the younger ones,

"What is your favorite tree-an oak or an elm, a beech or birch, a lime or a sycamore?" and "Say why you like best the one you choose."

To this from several children we got the stereotyped but out-of-date reply that they liked the oak best, because "the ships are made from it what defends England." The prettiest flowers a child in the third standard saw were "nosegays" and "tegtoes and garpees" in a garden; but a boy in the fourth standard had observed "Vemane, piney, purtunee, genastee and a stursion" growing. This botanical collection was however, improved on by a girl in the sixth standard, whose favorite flowers were "Policeman's hats" and "Break your mother's heart," two specimens which, alas! savor more of town and alley memories than country pleasures. Another child in the same standard had enjoyed "Minarets, Holy-oaks and Chame oisters"-where, it is not said, but perhaps in Canon Lester's garden, which was declared by a juvenile critic to be the prettiest "cottage garden" he "had ever seen."

The questions about animals excited much genuine interest, but showed that the faculty of observation had still to be cultivated. Of the children in Standards III and IV we asked:

(7) When sheep get up from lying down, do they rise with their front or their hind legs first?

(8) Do you think that the big pigs grunt as an expression of pain, or pleasure or both? Do the little pigs show any sign of affection to each other?

(9) Give the names by which we call the following animals when they are

babies: horse, goat, cow, fox, dog, cat, sheep, frog, rabbit, deer.

Thirty-two children out of 127 who sent in papers were right as to the way sheep rise. Twenty only realized the difference between a pig's grunts and squeals, one girl generalizing her observation in the sentence that "The grunt is the nature of the pig," and another outstepping her by the statement that "the pig grunts when he is mad." The large majority of our young nature-observers were convinced that little pigs were devoted to each other, eighteen only being doubtful on the point. But the ignorance shown of the names of the creatures was often surprising. I will give only a few instances:

A baby horse is a ponny.

A baby fox is an ox-a thorn. A baby deer is a reindeer-a oxen. A baby frog is a tertpol-a freshera toad.

A baby sheep is a bar lamb. A baby rabbit is a mammal. Of the children in the fifth and sixth standards we asked:

(6) Did you see any rabbits? Do they run? If not, will you describe their movements? Have you ever noticed a rabbit 'wobbling its nose'? Why do you think he does it? What do rabbits drink? What animals are the enemies of rabbits?

(7) Do sparrows and rooks walk alike? Tell me something about the movements of various birds which you have noticed. What gestures have chickens when they drink? Does any other bird drink in the same way? How many times do crows fold their wings after alighting?

It would take too long to detail the answers so as to be fair to the writers, but the idea of the rabbit "wobbling its nose" appealed to the children, and many and various were the causes assigned for it.

"To make holes in the ground," wrote one child.

"To account for the formation of its head," was the philosophy of another

one.

"It does it when it does what a cow does, digests it food," is a profound but an unsatisfactory explanation.

"Its washing its face," shows more credulity than observation; while another discarded reasons, and declared in a large round text-hand, regardless of grammar: "I have seen a number of rabbits wobblings its nose!"

Seven only answered the question rightly; but one child, although no inquiry was put concerning dogs, volunteered the information that "French puddles are kept for fancy, Irish terriers as ratters, but the boerhounds are kept for hunting the Boers," our sad trouble in South Africa being then on the horizon, and in the minds and mouths of many people.

Some of the people to whom I submitted our questions for helpful criticism objected to the last paragraph of this question:

(9) When did you see the moon during your holiday? Was it a new moon, a full moon or a waning moon? What makes the moon give light?

The children, they argued are taught this in the schools. It does not encourage observation or nature-study, and you will merely get a repetition of textbook sentences; but I felt it might help the children to connect their country pleasures with what they were taught in school, and so the six words were left in. "What makes the moon give light?"

Here are some of the replies: "Electricity

shine."

"The moon is the shadow of the earth on the clouds."

"The eclipse of the sun."
"The clouds."

Is it possible? and this from fifth and sixth standard children!

The pity of such answers is not the ignorance but the knowledge they show. The children have in one way been taught too much; their minds have been filled with scraps, while their understandings have not been strengthened.

The last question for all standards was set to test the individual tastes of the children.

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"A laddie where I stayed. She was a kind and gentle laddie."

"The party which Mrs. Cartwright gave us."

"Paddling at a place called flood gates."

"Watching a woman milking a cow. She held a can between her knees and causes the moon to pulled the milk out of the cow. I should like," adds this observer, "to be a farmer."

"The moon revolving round the sun, which gives light by unknown planets." "It is the darkness which shows it up."

"I also liked the way in witch I was treated, and also liked the respectability of Mrs. Byfield my charge," writes

one young prig; but many, both boys and girls wrote the same sentiment in simpler language a delightful tribute to our working-class homes.

Other children, again, evidently enjoyed rare experiences. "I enjoyed

most a Drive to market in a cart with four pigs in it. . . . There I saw men pulling the pigs about by their tails." Inappropriate handles, one would think. Another child showed more sympathetic feeling for the beasts, for her greatest pleasure had been "a drive in a brake when I sat in front and was glad I was not a horse."

Two expressed real appreciation of beauty and a perception of the spirit of the country. "The thing I liked best," wrote a fourth standard child, "was a lot of cornfields with their stalks waving in the wind;" and the other said, "We were half a mile from home it was so quiet and lonely except for the birds music, and that walk I enjoyed most."

But very few children replied as to whether they had read any books. One, however, gave a list which should awaken us all to serious thought:

"The books I read in my two weeks," writes a boy of twelve, "was 'Chips,' 'Comic Cuts,' "The World's Comic,' 'Funny Cuts,' "The Funny Wonder,' 'Comic Home Journal.'" Those of us who know the vulgarity and irreverence which make up half the fun of such serials must regret the absence of the guiding word in the choice of literature which was given to another lad, who thus had read "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "Treasure Island."

One child could not have been exactly a desirable guest, not, that is to say, if she frequently indulged in what she liked best, which was "to lay in bed and sing songs all the night!" And there is a record of a fourth standard child which, on the other side, is as valuable as Lord Salisbury's recent statement that the public-house had no

attractions and no temptations for children under sixteen, for she has written that "what I liked best all the time was that I met a brewer"-a kind man seemingly, who gave her a ride.

But if I tell more of this sort of answers I shall give a wrong impression of the value of the work done by the children or convey an untrue idea of the success of the plan. On the whole the papers were encouraging. They were exceedingly varied-some deserving the adjective "excellent," some unquestionably bad, their value depending on the trouble taken by the teachers, or the interest shown by the school managers, to some extent on the locality and on the care of the ladies who, by the organization of the Country Holiday Fund, overlook the children during their visits in the villagers' cottages, acting as outside hostesses. is always difficult to generalize with accuracy, but almost without exception more originality was shown among children in the younger standards and from Voluntary schools. In the upper standards and from the Board schools there was less variety, the replies being more stereotyped, the children from the same school often bearing the impress of the training received rather than the development of their own individuality in tastes and interests.

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Of the drawings asked from children of Standards V and VI several were admirable, giving evidence of both delicate discernment and certainty of stroke. But when animals were attempted they showed more likeness to the cheap toys "made in Germany," which are the heritage of the poor, than to the creatures of the freer movements on the common or in the farmyard. Some six or eight of the collections of grasses were good, evincing care and choice; but others again merely exhibited the desire to get a lot, quite regardless of their varieties or their interest. One child had observed

closely and described graphically the flower of the lime; another likened the birch tree to a "graceful lady;" two distinguished between the way white, red and black currants grew on their respective stems. Several children wrote comprehensive lists of the flowers which flourished in cornfields; and five had noticed how out of wheat, barley and rye, the latter grew the tallest, "for good rye grows high." A boy from a very poor neighborhood in East London wrote a really telling description of a team of horses reaping, and many a little one expressed its pleasure or interest in childlike but fitting language. Some ten or twelve described carefully watched sunsets in quaint words and with poetical feeling. Fifteen children had noticed how many times a crow folded its wings after alighting on the ground; and a considerable number (especially boys) had watched intelligently the walks and other movements of various birds, and could accurately report on the gestures of chickens when drinking. One child wrote an excellent original story about a grateful cat, and several others offered shreds of narratives which gave promise in the future of a more intelligent consideration of the habits and ways of the creatures.

When the papers were all in, they were adjudged and marked-150 was the maximum number of marks. One child in Standard VII got 114 and another 107. Ten children obtained over 75, and one hundred got over 50. We then assembled all three hundred and thirty together at Toynbee Hall to a monster tea-party. The thirty prizewinners received books about nature and framed pictures of flowers. each of the hundred whose achievements allowed them to be marked at 50 was given a hyacinth bulb in a glass, and to each of the two hundred who had tried but not succeeded was presented a consolation gift of an illus

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trated magazine. Thus all were gladdened, and the experiment was concluded amid smiles.

The result is, I believe, such as to encourage its extension for town children when they are in the country, and on the same lines as are suggested for rural children in the circular of the Board of Education already referred to, which says:

One of the main objects of the teacher should be to develop in every boy and girl that habit of inquiry and research so natural to children; they should be encouraged to ask their own questions about the simple phenomena of Nature which they see around them, and themselves to search for flowers, plants, insects, and other objects to illustrate the lessons which they have learnt with their teacher.

The teacher should as occasion offers take the children out of doors for school walks at the various seasons of the year, and give simple lessons on the spot about animals in the field and farmyards, about ploughing and sowing, about fruit trees and forest trees, about birds, insects and flowers, and other objects of interest. The lessons thus learnt out of doors can be afterwards carried forward in the schoolroom by Reading, Composition, Pictures, and Drawing.

In this way, and in various other ways that teachers will discover for themselves, children who are brought up in village schools will learn to understand what they see about them, and to take an intelligent interest in the various processes of Nature. This sort of teaching will, it is hoped, directly tend to foster in the children a genuine love for the country and for country pursuits.

It is not only to provide the child with greater pleasure in the country and its life that the Board of Education have adopted this plan, for the circular goes on to say that

It is confidently expected that the child's intelligence will be so quickened by the kind of training that is here

suggested that he will be able to master, with far greater ease than before, the ordinary subjects of the school curriculum.

Neither is the ultimate utilitarian view left out of sight, for

The Board consider it highly desirable that the natural activities of children should be turned to useful account -that their eyes, for example, should be trained to recognize plants and insects that are useful or injurious (as the case may be) to the agriculturist, that their hands should be trained to some of the practical dexterities of rural life and not merely to the use of pen and pencil, and that they should be taught, when circumstances permit, how to handle the simpler tools that are used in the garden or on the farm, before their school life is over.

It is such teaching, if intelligently given, that will do much to solve the problem of the dearth of agricultural labor, and be an influence in stopping the inrush of the rural population to towns.

But my subject is the joy of town children when on their country holidays, and it is good to know that the habit of taking country holidays-real holidays and not day treats-is greatly increasing. Thousands of children are sent by Holidays Committees from all the great cities to stay for a fortnight or three weeks with cottage hosts. More go by their own arrangements, often to the same persons whose friendship they had made in previous visits.

It is not enough, however, to provide change; the power to use change must at the same time be educated. Children need to be taught to enjoy as much as they need to be taught to work. Crit

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ics who complain of our plan, and say when they themselves take holiday they "do nothing," forget with what an equipment they start-how much their eyes see and their ears hear when they are doing their "nothing!"

The children of the poor, familiar only with the sights and sounds of the streets, and with the home talk about the cares of daily life, trained in school on paying subjects, find "doing nothing" very tiring, and mischief often follows weariness. They cannot with advantage lie under a hedge and dream; they are unacquainted with country games or the knowledge which provides recreation. If, however, teachers, managers and country ladies will take trouble to interest the children in what may be seen in a country lane, or to follow the fortunes of the inhabitants of a peartree, or to admire the beauty of the sky, or to observe the habits of a creature without commercial value, the children would not only have more lively minds, but they would more really enjoy themselves and their holidays.

Nature is the kind teacher of children, the teacher most likely to draw out from them their undiscovered powers, to stimulate their fancy and satisfy their restless longings. But Nature must be introduced by those who already are her friends and who can exhibit her cunning beauty to the unobservant.

The experiment in which I have had the pleasure of taking part has shown in a small and imperfect way how such an introduction can be effected, and how the suggestion that there is joy in looking can be applied.

Henrietta O. Barnett.

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