668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions of nature may be so unfolded and presented that the youth of 

 America may be turned from the unprofitable, innutritious, and de- 

 moralizing food of fiction to the bread and water of a true life." 



The facts, details, and technicalities of this science are too im- 

 mensely numerous to be taught with any great degree of thoroughness, 

 except to such as make a life-specialty of the study. Yet a knowledge 

 of its most interesting and important facts, principles, and methods, 

 unencumbered with a strict scientific nomenclature, can be so quickly 

 imparted as to bring it within temporal possibilities. 



All educational institutions, and public schools especially, should 

 be required to teach vertebrate and entomological zoology in a thor- 

 ough manner, while the general characteristics of the other branches 

 and a few of their more common and curious representatives should be 

 briefly studied in addition. 



The only way to bring practical entomology to agricultural minds 

 generally, to the class with whom it is of greatest importance, is to 

 require that it be taught in all public schools. It is a kind of knowl- 

 edge which the young country student grasps easily and successfully 

 when deprived of its unessential technicalities. Of such practical con- 

 sequence is it, that it had better be taught at the expense of almost 

 any other study of the usual courses, and some attention to it would 

 be a great relief from unnecessary problems in abstractions which are 

 often inflicted to a useless extent in early training. 



It is a sad result of the failure to teach natural science in the public 

 schools that our cultivators do not recognize their own interest and 

 duty with reference to insects, and need to be forced by law to a sense 

 of its importance, even when they appear as a great scourge and leave 

 famine in their trail. Entomological legislation with respect to the 

 locust plague in the West, like the German insect-laws (" Abraupgeset- 

 zen "), has been to a considerable extent beneficial, though it is often 

 difficult to force the execution of such laws. There are strong reasons 

 why we should have a set of insect-laws for all the States. They would 

 be as useful and as easily enforced as the " game-laws," and those pro- 

 hibiting the harboring of certain noxious plants, or of nuisances against 

 which boards of health are organized. Only by some such arrange- 

 ment can farmers be compelled to cooperate for their own interests 

 and successfully combat the thieves which are robbing them of their 

 produce, for there are plenty whose sense of obligation can only be 

 aroused through government influence, and who will not educate them- 

 selves in this subject unless forced to it. Laws, even if not executed 

 successfully, instruct the people as to their duties. We need legislation 

 to enforce 1. The teaching of entomology and vertebrate zoology. 

 2. Cooperation in destroying insect-pests. 3. The protection of bene- 

 ficial insects. 4. The protection of useful birds and their eggs, whether 

 game-birds or not, throughout the entire year. 



Where can the schools and teachers get the incentives and helps 



