NATURE STUDY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13891, 30 April 1909, Page 6

NATURE STUDY.

To the Editor of the " Timaru Herald." Sir,— Apropos of your article in last Saturday's "Herald" on the Bible in schools question, in which you suggest that nature study would in a measure supply the place of religious instruction, 1 forward you the following clipping from a '' Punch'' of last February : One of the results of "Nature Study" in a Devonshire school has been'the following letter: —"To head teacher. —Please ask County Councils to excuse my children from religious instruction in earth-worms, and put them to somethink else. Jim's father found five in is pocket." It is interesting to notice that the parent in question goes own further than you do yourself.—l -un, etc , BACK BLOCKS. [We put it to "Back Blocks" whether that old joke does not represent the exceptional blunder of pupil or teacher, and parent, rather than the usual result of the pursuit of nature ,study in the schools. Earth-worms in dad's pocket have uo relation to the subject, properly taught, even on itpurely zoological side, and absolutelv none on its religious side, for: this is a study of the relations of natural objects to, one another; especially in the case of living things, of 'the adaptation of form and : function to conditions of their environment. Hand or pocket specimens arc no use l.ere —- i Ed. T.H. I s=B i