Jan. 21.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 295

play; cleanliness of person (hands, faces, teeth, heads), of clothes, about the house, and in school; clean talk and clean thoughts; pure minds and pure deeds; truthfulness in word and deed; honest work; self-control; government of temper; patience; perseverance; moral courage; duties in relation to our own bodies and minds; temperance in eating and drinking; the reading of good books; choice of amusements; readiness to learn from all. Duties to others, to parents, to the family, to those in misfortune, to neighbours and those in authority, to fellow-pupils; respect for others; obedience to parents and teachers; toleration of others in regard to act, speech, and opinion; gratitude; practical help to others; speaking well of others; kindness, unselfishness, and self-denial. Good manners—at home, to parents, to friends, to brothers and sisters; at school, to teachers and fellow-pupils; in the street, to girls and women, to the old and to the young, to the sick and afflicted, to seniors, equals, and juniors—in short, to every one. Money and its uses; it represents the result of labour; frugality and thrift; savings-banks. Regard for property, public or private, not to injure or spoil. We should help to make the place we live in a more beautiful place. Civic duties; the franchise, and the duty of using it always with honesty and intelligence; the welfare of the State should be the care of all, for we are all members of it. Kindness to animals. Candour; honour; love of home; forgiveness and forbearance; peace; duty; accuracy and pains-taking; contentment; benevolence or humanity; cheerfulness; self-reliance; self-respect; modesty; courage; prudence; zeal and energy; justice; loyalty and patriotism; respect for law; magnanimity; integrity of purpose; precept and example; formation of character; the golden rule.

The experience of teachers will guide them as to the best time and manner in which to impart these lessons; it will probably be recognised that abstract moral teaching fails to excite any interest in the minds of children generally, and that it is best to enforce the principles of moral conduct by examples taken from history, biography, poetry, and fiction, and by anecdote, allegory, and fable.

NATURE-STUDY.

49. The course of instruction should be so arranged as to include a continuous course of nature-study, the purpose being to train children in the careful observation of surrounding objects and common phenomena, and to set them to ask themselves questions such as, “What does this mean, and how does it act, and why?” It is not intended that nature-study should have a separate place on the time-table: lessons on objects, on natural history, and in elementary science should consist chiefly of instruction of this kind; the most important parts of the lessons on geography may be thus described; some of the best subjects for composition exercises may be led up to by questions based on the children’s own observation in their ordinary life, or in their rambles about the district; the information given in many of the reading lessons may be tested, confirmed, supplemented, and reinforced by nature-study; and the elementary applied science—e.g., the lessons on health, cottage-gardening, agriculture—should be based upon it.

It would be well for the teacher, when drawing up the programme of work in the several subjects of the syllabus, to have in mind a scheme of nature-study, and the various parts of the instruction should be so co-ordinated as to pursue this scheme continuously throughout the school course.

Nothing can be considered as nature-study unless it includes an actual study of things themselves by the individual children; models, pictures, and books may be valuable aids, but are not substitutes for it.

The following heads of study are intended as suggestions to teachers: The structure of a bird; birds and their habits; the study of an egg at various stages. The structure of a well-known mammal, as a rabbit; the differences in form and habit of various mammals. The human body. The structure of a fish. Insects: the life-history of a few common insects—e.g., butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, grubs and caterpillars, hive-bees and wild bees, &c. (butterflies or moths may be reared in the school). Lizards, frogs, crabs, oysters, worms, and other forms of animal life as seen in ponds or on the sea-shore. Plants; flowers, wild and garden; roots, leaves, seeds, and fruits; the life of plants, germination and growth; the effect of light, moisture, soil, and manures. Food of plants. Trees and the common kinds of timber. Shrubs. Wheat and other useful grasses. Other useful plants. Useful vegetable products: starch may be obtained from a potato, sugar from a parsnip, beet, or carrot. Ferns. Fungi; mildew. Water, its nature and forms. Soils; clay, sand, limestone, mud, gravel, &c.