NATURE STUDY.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XVI, Issue 2008, 2 May 1906, Page 2

NATURE STUDY.

Melbourne papers just to hand give an interesting account of a nature study exhibition lately opened at the Gordon Technical College, Geelong. If nature study is going to accomplish all that its supporters claim for it, it is going to do great things for the rising generation. We are not without our doubts on the subject, but in view of the expert opinion ranged in favour of it, it would be rash for an outsider to yield to opinions of an opposite nature. If, however, 4here is in the' system the commanding virtue that is claimed for it, it is clear that the thing must be done thoroughly. Whether'here in New Zealand it has been generally tackled in this spirit we cannot say, but it is being adopted all over Australia with greater or less

vigour, and in Geelong especially the thing is being done with thoroughness. They have had exhibitions there before, but the present display is far in excess of anything they have previously produced. In one group of exhibits confined to schools there are eight sections —zoology, botany, geology, drawings, paintings and modelling, collections of natural history objects, and literary, which embraces the "note book" on school rambles, nature study work, natural history objects, and essays on various subjects. In the zoological section there are exhibits of Australian birds, reptiles, lepiloptera (butterflies and moths) ; injurious and useful insects, spiders, mimicry among insects; Victorian land and fresh water shells, shells generally, and seaside objects. The botany section has exhibits of grasses, seeds, native and dried plants, ferns, mosses and timber. The drawings, painting and modelling include studios in black and white (animal, and still life) and studies from nature. There is also an aquarium (fresh and salt water) herbarium and vivarium. All the exhibits in this group are in the names of children attending schools in various parts of the State, and. they mean very much more than the mere display of, interesting objects or collections The fact that children are able to distinguish between useful and injurious insects should be a decided adyantage to the community generally, especially in country districts. The guiding principle of a certain country used to be, " When you see ahead, hit it," and the natural impulse when one sees an insect is to kill it. With the power to discriminate which knowledge of insect life gives them, children will learn to protect the useful forms, and at the same time be just as keen as ever on destroying the injurious ones. The exhibits, of wood in the rough, smoothed, and polished, all of them prepared by children, suggest that if there is anything of educational value in the system it should be turned to good account in this matter, if in no other. In timber couutries like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada the 'trees form a vast international asset —if they are put to good account. If not, they are merely so much capital thrown away. If the children as a body are brought into contact with the value of woods in their school days, the number of those who in the future are destined to come into business contact with the material will be increased, and their knowledge will have a deeper and more lasting foundation. All this is very "good and very praiseworthy, but we must not lose sight of its possible effect on other branches of school work. The three R's will, we take it, always be the main consideration. What is crowded out after insuring their continuance will be a matter for experts. That something will be crowded out is, to the ordinary layman, obvious enough, and it is to be hoped the question will be decided in a manner that will not drive teachers from teaching, and so further deplete a profession that already seems to have very little attraction for the rising generation.