shufeldt YOUNG AMERICA AND NATURE-STUDY 



165 



Photo by Elizabeth F. Burnett 



Children of Jefferson Street School studying a gopher and king snake. 



Los Angeles, Cal. 



Nature offers us for study all that we find in the Vegetable 

 Kingdom; and all that we find in the Anima 1 Kingdom, from the 

 very lowest forms up to include our own species, which last 

 stands, mentally and in all but a few minor particulars, at the 

 head of the series. Then we can study the form of the Earth 

 and its crust, as far into it as we can reach, including the various 

 fossils it contains and the elements of which it is composed. Also 

 the study of all fluids and solids of the globe, and its atmospheric 

 envelope. Some recent nature books add to these subjects the 

 study of elementary astronomy; the weather; snow, hail, and 

 rain, and a few closely allied things. 



Young nature students should secure a camera as soon as 

 possible, and learn to use it; but this is a subject I trust to take 

 up for you later, as it is altogether too important a branch of 

 nature-study to skim lightly over. 



Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory 

 of the tale of Orpheus; it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthu- 

 siasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victo- 

 ries without it. Bulwer 



