12 Handbook of Nature-Study 



nary diet; a world in fact, where every meal is based upon the death of 

 some creature. For if she places much emphasis upon the sacredness of 

 life, the children soon begin to question whether it be right to slay the 

 lamb or the chicken for their own food. It would seem that there is 

 nothing for the consistent nature-study teacher to do but become a 

 vegetarian, and even then there might arise refinements in this question 

 of taking life, she might have to consider the cruelty to asparagus in 

 cutting it off in plump infancy, or the ethics of devouring in the turnip the 

 food laid up by the mother plant to perfect her seed. In fact, a most 

 rigorous diet would be forced upon the teacher who should refuse to sus- 

 tain her own existence at the cost of life; and if she should attempt to 

 teach the righteousness of such a diet she would undoubtedly forfeit her 

 position ; and yet what is she to do ! She will soon find herself in the 

 position of a certain lady who placed sheets of sticky fly-paper around her 

 kitchen to rid her house of flies, and then in mental anguish picked off the 

 buzzing, struggling victims and sought to clean their too adhesive wings 

 and legs. 



In fact, drawing the line between what to kill and what to let live, 

 requires the use of common sense rather than logic. First of all, the 

 nature-study teacher, while exemplifying and encouraging the humane 

 attitude toward the lower creatures, and repressing cruelty which 

 wantonly causes suffering, should never magnify the terrors of death. 

 Death is as natural as life and the inevitable end of physical life on our 

 globe. Therefore, every story and every sentiment expressed which 

 makes the child feel that death is terrible, is wholly wrong. The one right 

 way to teach about death is not to emphasize it one way or another, but to 

 deal with it as a circumstance common to all; it should be no more 

 emphasized than the fact that creatures eat or fall asleep. 



Another thing for the nature-study teacher to do is to direct the 

 interest of the child so that it shall center upon the hungry creature 

 rather than upon the one which is made into the meal. It is well to 

 emphasize the fact that one of the conditions imposed upon every living 

 being in the woods and fields, is that it is entitled to a meal when it is 

 hungry, if it is clever enough to get it. The child naturally takes this 

 view of it. I remember well as a child I never thought particularly about 

 the mouse which my cat was eating; in fact, the process of transmuting 

 mouse into cat seemed altogether proper, but when the cat played with 

 the mouse, that was quite another thing, and was never permitted. 

 Although no one appreciates more deeply than I the debt which we owe to 

 Thompson-Seton and writers of his kind, who have placed before the 

 public the animal story from the animal point of view and thus set us all 

 to thinking, yet it is certainly wrong to impress this view too strongly 

 upon the young and sensitive child. In fact, this process should not 

 begin until the judgment and the understanding is well developed, for we 

 all know that although seeing the other fellow's standpoint is a source of 

 strength and breadth of mind, yet living the other fellow's life is, at 

 best, an enfeebling process and a futile waste of energy. 



