THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED TO ALL PHASES OF NATURE-STUDY IN SCHOOLS 



Vol. 5 MAY, 1909 No. 5 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE NATURE-STUDY TEACHER 

 TOWARD LIFE AND DEATH 



By ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK 

 Cornell University 



Perhaps no greater danger besets the pathway of the nature- 

 study teacher than the question involved in her pupils' attitude 

 toward life and death. To inculcate in the child a reverence for 

 life and yet to keep him from becoming mawkish and morbid is 

 truly a difficult problem. It is almost inevitable that the child 

 should become sympathetic with the life of the animal or plant 

 studied, since a true understanding of the life of any creature 

 creates an interest which stimulates a desire to protect this 

 particular creature and make its life less hard. Many times 

 within my own experience have I known boys who began by 

 robbing birds' nests for egg collections to end by becoming most 

 zealous protectors of the birds. The humane instinct within 

 these boys budded and blossomed in the growing knowledge of the 

 lives of the birds. At Cornell University it is a well-known fact 

 that those students who turn aside so as not to crush the ant, 

 caterpillar or cricket on the pavement are almost invariably 

 those who are studying entomology; and in America it is the 

 botanists themselves who are leading the crusade for flower 

 protection. 



Thus the nature-study teacher, if she does her work well, is a 

 sure aid in inculcating a respect for the rights of all living beings 

 to their own lives, and she needs only to lend her influence gently 

 in this direction to change carelessness to thoughtfulness and 

 cruelty to kindness. But with this impetus toward a reverence 

 for life, the teacher soon finds herself in a dilemma from which 



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