314 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:7-Oct. f 1916 



in every possible manner. In the spring, when the birds are 

 returning from their southward journey, it is a very good plan to 

 devote a part of the blackboard to a bird calendar. With the aid 

 of a yardstick a few lines may be drawn and the board divided into 

 columns in which to record the name of each bird and the date of 

 its appearance, together with the name of the pupil by whom it was 

 first reported. This stimulates a healthy interest in watching 

 the birds, as everyone wishes to see his name on the board in con- 

 nection with a bird which no one else has seen. 



Let the teacher do a little personal study herself. The children 

 are always interested in any little anecdotes the teacher may tell, 

 particularly when they relate to something she herself has seen 

 or done. We all listen with more interest to the man who tells 

 his own experience than to him who relates the experiences of some 

 one else, and children are no exception to the general rule. When 

 we have succeeded in bringing the personal element into Nature- 

 Study, so that teacher and pupil listen to each other with the same 

 interest and both are seeking some new wonder of the Great Out- 

 doors to tell the other, we have achieved true success. 



Introducing Nature-Study into the school brings perhaps added 

 burdens to the already busy teacher, but after all it is well worth 

 while. Our very existence is closely interwoven with that of the 

 world, animate and inanimate, around us and no education is 

 complete without a knowledge of our relation to this sphere on 

 which we live. The writer has a right to be enthusiastic over the 

 subject, for he was a "victim" of Nature Teaching in the public 

 school. History and geography he has largely forgotten and 

 arithmetic is remembered as an unpleasant nightmare, but the love 

 of Nature aroused in that schoolroom under the guidance of a 

 teacher who was herself a lover of the fields and woods, has given 

 more pleasure than all else in life combined. I would dedicate 

 this article to that teacher. 



" The study of nature is an intercourse with the highest mind. You 

 should never trifle with Nature. At the lowest her works are the works 

 of the highest powers, the highest something in whatever way we may 

 look at it." — Agassiz. 



