smith THE CHILD AND THE FOREST 77 



To get the child to know and love the woods — not trees merely ; 

 to want to know more about the forest, while all the time he 

 grows more at home in it, and stores more deeply within himself 

 the impressions that come from its primal appeal to the child's 

 imagination and life; these are surely worth-while things to seek. 

 Can they be attained? For the boys and girls who can be got 

 into the woods, I do not see why not, provided the teacher knows 

 how to get them there. But to be sure of getting them there the 

 teacher must know the woods himself. 



Forestry deserves the attention of educators to an extent 

 beyond that now given it. Of our original forest area a little more 

 than one-half remains, but much of it in badly depleted condition 

 through abusive methods of use and the ravages of fire. The 

 public character of the country's forest problem is too well known 

 to require urging here. As future citizens our school children 

 should, I think, understand the close relationship that 

 exists between our future national welfare and the use made 

 of the one-fourth or more of our land area which should be per- 

 manently devoted to forest. Forest production and agricultural- 

 crop production are our two main land uses. Whether looked at 

 from the standpoint of civics, of geography, of natural science, 

 of economics, or of the humanistic ideal in education, the forest 

 lays important claims to recognition. Nature-study should 

 lay the foundations for later teaching to build on. 



Already the limits set for this little paper have been overrun. 

 What can the nature-study teacher in the big city do to give the 

 child some sm.all part of that natural heritage from which an artificial 

 environment cuts him off? That is a hard question to answer 

 satisfatorily. in short compass or in long. Yet it is perhaps 

 worth remembering that the child's imagination will do much 

 to supplement such material as even in a city can be supplied for 

 actual study. Story, description, poetry, lantern-slides, motion 

 pictures, photographs, school and museum, exhibits of various kinds, 

 can all be made to help in the building of at least a partial equiva- 

 lent for what the child more fortunately situated in this respect 

 may with the outward eye behold. 



