APRIL 20.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 1179

with its north towards the true north, and the children should be led to
connect the information it gives with the knowledge they have already
acquired and with the plans they have drawn. This method might then
be extended to the map of New Zealand, the positions of, say, twelve places
in other parts of the Dominion being known in relation to the education
or provincial district in which the school is situated.

Second Year (S4).—The work is to be extended—e.g., the action of rain
and of rivers should be more fully treated, especially as regards denudation of the earth’s surface, and the deposition of alluvium in the lower
course of a river, or at the inside of a bend in its course or at its mouth,
and the formation of bars and deltas.

The relative rapidity with which, or the order in which, pebbles, sand,
and clay are deposited may be observed from experiment, or from the
action that takes place in a pool, in a small stream, or by cutting a section
with a spade through the sediment left in a large puddle (the section, of
course, should be cut when the water has run off or evaporated); or
experiments might be made in the playground, or with a wooden tray and
clay, sand, and shingle, as suggested above.

A fairly complete study should be made of some river known to the
class or to most of the individuals in it; comparison should then be made
between this river and two or three other rivers in New Zealand, and also,
if pictures can be obtained, between the given river and, say, one river in
each of the great continents.

The children should then infer from the map of New Zealand the
general slope of the surface, and could construct rough relief maps of the
North and of the South Island. The same process might be applied in a
general way to the continents, of which, also, very rough relief maps could
be made.

The process of evaporation should be demonstrated practically—first,
rapid evaporation, as when water is boiled; next, slow evaporation, as
of a small quantity of water in a saucer in front of a fire, or in the sunshine,
or even anywhere in comparatively dry air; next, the formation of vapour
clouds, the deposit of water on cold surfaces, the formation of dew, &c.

Plans of the playground may again be drawn, and distances and areas
calculated therefrom. This should be followed by the drawing of more
extensive and more accurate plans of the district around the school than
have been made in S3; the rough measurement of distances might be computed therefrom.

The following work may be done either in this class or in S5: By
means of an upright stick, post, or block, the children might be taught
to find the altitude to the nearest degree of the sun, at noon at the equinoxes
and at the solstices; to note approximately the length of day and night,
checking their observations by reference to the times of sunrise and sunset
as given in any almanac.

Some very useful work might be done in the direction of the discovery
by the children from their observations of the nature of the movements
of the earth and of its form. It would, for instance, be quite possible
for children at this stage to be taught to recognize a few of the brightest
stars, to notice that those in the northern sky, on any given evening,
seem to be moving from right to left, and that the Southern Cross seems
to be turning round in the same direction as the hands of a clock. Hence,
by a general but simple inference they might be led to the idea of the
daily rotation of the earth. There should be no attempt to hurry the
process; there should be observations taken by the children themselves
during the winter months, and the conclusion should be formulated when
their minds are ready for it.

If an eclipse of the moon visible in New Zealand occurs, the opportunity should not be missed of showing the children, by lessons beforehand upon shadows, and lessons afterwards upon what was seen during
the eclipse, what is really for children probably the best proof of the earth’s
rotundity.

Map-reading and Physical Geography.

Third Year (S5).—The scale of the wall-map of New Zealand used in the
school compared with the scale of the map of the district; the scale of the
map of New Zealand in an atlas or geographical reader. A few distances
may be computed from the map of New Zealand, and also, roughly, the
areas of the North and South Islands, and of the whole Dominion. Either
in this class or in S6 the process may be extended so as to give clear ideas
as to the distance of New Zealand from Australia, Fiji, &c.; the extent
and area of Australia, &c. First ideas (to be further extended in S6) about
glaciers and the work of ice; the sea and its work; tides; winds and currents;
coasts, rocky and otherwise; capes. General distribution of land and water
on the surface of the globe; the land hemisphere; the water hemisphere.
The mountain and river systems, in outline, of some one continent.

F