Natural History in Schools

Abstract

AMONG the many indications of the taste for natural science which is spreading throughout the country, there is none more striking than the rapid increase, during the last ten years, of local Field Clubs and Natural History Societies. Those who reside in our larger towns and can avail themselves of every facility for prosecuting their favourite branch of study, are apt to under-estimate the value of these bodies, and to look upon them as merely accessories to the bringing together, under the name of science, of men of congenial tastes, rather than as performing any definite or actual work; but this is an error which can only arise in the minds of those who have had no opportunity of seeing the working of such societies, and who have not therefore felt the advantages by which membership is attended in a remote country district. No doubt there are, here and there, Field Clubs which fall short of the perfection they ought to attain; but that these are the exception, and not the rule, no one who has investigated the matter can reasonably doubt.