304
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 7

Take some garden-soil; weigh it. Dry it by placing the vessel containing it in a vessel with water in it, and keeping the latter for some time at the boiling-point. Weigh it from time to time until it ceases to lose weight. How much water has been driven off? Take the dry soil; wash it well with pure water, and pour the latter off carefully so that the water poured off is quite clear. Dry the soil again. Has it lost weight? Why?

Collect and examine various insects, including the grubs, chrysalides, and the full-grown insects. Rear a few moths in boxes, noting the stages of development. Note the plants on which the grubs or caterpillars are found or feed. Note as far as you can the habits and the life-history of the various insects. Are they noxious or not? Do birds feed upon them; if so, what birds?

Use a thermometer to find the temperature of the air, of warm water, of the surface of the ground. Add half a pint of cold water to half a pint of warm water, observing the temperatures before and after mixing. Find the temperature of the steam over boiling water, and also that of a mixture of ice and water. Take readings of the thermometer twice or three times daily in the shade and in the sun, and, if possible, maximum and minimum readings.

There should be a few simple experiments to show the constitution of air, production of oxygen, burning charcoal in oxygen, testing product with lime-water, &c.; “soda-water”; coal-gas; ammonia, its solubility in water, &c.; composition of water; iron and iron-rust; the distinction between mixtures and chemical compounds; acids and alkalis, effect on litmus, on violet flower; comparative density of liquids; use of hydrometer and lactometer; solutions; emulsions; &c.

The work begun in Standard IV. should be continued in the upper standards in conjunction with cottage gardening, small plots being cultivated by the individual children for the experimental illustration of the lessons taken within the school, and a somewhat larger plot for more extended experiments—e.g., as to the effects of various modes of cultivation and of various kinds of common manures upon the soils found in the district, one row or ridge being devoted to each experiment.

The courses for cottage gardening and for elementary agriculture for classes under the Manual and Technical Instruction Act will serve as guides for what is intended in this respect.

58. “Handwork” in these regulations means any subject prescribed for “School Classes” under the Manual and Technical Instruction Acts.

59. It is to be considered as important that the programme of instruction in any school shall be drawn up with a due regard to the principle of co-ordination, so that the various portions of the work shall be regarded not so much as separate subjects, but as parts of a whole linked together firmly by immediate reference to the facts and needs of the children’s daily life.

Accordingly, the requirements of the syllabus for the several classes in various kinds of schools are to be adapted to the children in those classes, to the circumstances of the district, to the staff of the school, &c. For example, in a small country school with one teacher there would be as much grouping of classes as possible. In the lower classes the drawing would be combined with the handwork, if the latter were taken; geography, if taken, would form part of the course of object-lessons. In the upper classes one course of lessons might meet the more definite of the requirements for geography A, nature-study, health, and elementary science, and this course might even be connected with a handwork course, such as cottage-gardening. Geographical and historical readers taken in alternate years in Standards III. and IV. grouped together, and in Standards V. and VI. grouped together, might give a convenient way of treating the lessons in geography B, history, and civic instruction, and so on.

60. The course of instruction in any school may, if the Board of Education think fit, be modified in accordance with these regulations immediately on the publication thereof, or at any time not later than the 1st day of July, 1904; but in all other respects these regulations shall come into force on the 1st day of January, 1904.

61. In case of any misunderstanding arising as to the meaning of any part of these regulations the Minister of Education shall declare what is to be taken as the meaning, and his interpretation shall be binding upon all persons to whom it is communicated, and shall, if declared by publication in the New Zealand Gazette, have equal force with these regulations.

ALEX. WILLIS,
Clerk of the Executive Council.

By Authority JOHN MACKAY, Government Printer, Wellington.