106 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW L 6:4- Apr. ,1910 



the end of the season; protection from enemies must be afford- 

 ed; similitude to real houses for man's occupancy is not the 

 criterion of merit in a bird house. 



Such propositions as these started trains of thought that 

 only study could adequately investigate, and the library was ap- 

 pealed to in order to provide data for accomplishment. The 

 girls gave their attention mainly to the posters and the boys to 

 the houses. And how they did work! 



The school had no shop, no bench, no' vise, no lumber, and 

 few tools. But an old soap box that could be had for the ask- 

 ing, a jack-knife, a saw, a hammer, and a few nails, can do won- 

 ders, and the boys were not dismayed by the scarcity of ma- 

 terial. The open lots still bore trees, — alas, too soon to dis- 

 appear before the advancing "flats", and bark was not wanting 

 for the rustic exteriors. 



The weeks flew by and the term drew all too rpaidly to a 

 close for those whose heart had got into their work, and by 

 May 5th there had been constructed over thirty houses and as 

 many posters that were to make the exhibition. Interest was 

 never greater. There was something tangible to work for, 

 something not too hopelessly unattainable, and there was the 

 promise, too, of getting the house back and actually having a 

 chance to set it up in the back yard to see whether it would 

 work. 



The experiment was a decided success. The park authori- 

 ties of Bronx Park offered to take all the bird houses we could 

 make, and more than one visitor regarded enviously the mina- 

 ture structures that would have looked so cosy on "that little 

 place up in the country". 



The title of this article is misleading; it is a little too ambi- 

 tious; but it is real so far as it goes The boys learned to look 

 beyond the tedious old string-winders and pencil-sharpeners 

 that the "course" called for, found new life in a subject that 

 had seemed as dead as Methuselah, and new capabilities in the 

 untried resources of every household. Nature was brought 

 home (in both senses) and observation of the commonplace, or 

 at least the usual, was sharpened. The teacher felt that con- 

 structive work was possible to a greater degree than ever be- 

 fore and a correlation was more obvious; while the principal 

 learned anew the frequently reiterated, and too frequently ig- 

 nored, potency of the doctrine of interest. 



