212 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:4— Apr., 1915 



designed primarily to delineate an idea. It stands for some- 

 thing. It is not that thing but stands for it. A child is shown a 

 colored picture of a blue-jay, is expected to describe it as expertly 

 as he can, and is finally told that it is a blue-jay (seldom qualifying 

 the notion by the statement that it is a picture of a blue-jay). 

 The word blue- jay thereupon becomes associated with a combina- 

 tion of colors on a cardboard — and not with the blue-jay himself 

 for which the picture stands. Multiply this result by as many 

 pictures as you thus hold before him, and you have the product of 

 so many names associated with as many pictures — and all minus 

 the notions which are alone worth while — those clustering about the 

 bird as a living, active, result-producing creature. 



Against all of this you will doubtless retaliate by asking how 

 you are to get your children to know the birds unless you do it 

 in this way ? To this query we would immediately oppose another 

 and ask you if you are sure that they know the birds when you 

 undertake to teach them in this way? It is admitted that names 

 may be rightly affixed — sometimes — by first learning them in con- 

 nection with the study of pictures. But the bird is more than a 

 name. It is a living thing with powers and habits peculiar to 

 itself, and these can never be learned from the inspection of a 

 picture. Continuing your argument you would possibly then 

 declare that by the use of pictures plus books of description and 

 narration an adequate understanding of birds may be had. Ade- 

 quate, we would reply, as pure intellections. But such studies 

 are dead; they are like the body with the spirit gone from it; 

 they do not lead to a realization of the truth. They are outlines 

 only of the whole picture, the colors, the lights and shadows which 

 give perspective, and the details of which are added by the move- 

 ments and song of the bird ; by leaf and tree and flower ; by waves 

 beating the shore; by meadows and marshes; by the warm sun 

 of spring and the cold of winter; by all the appealing forces of 

 the great out-of-doors. 



And so, disregarding the appeal of the real bird as an object 

 of study, interests become shallow or transient, facts learned from 

 books are speedily forgotten, and the whole thing lacks the element 

 of reality. 



Nor are we to forget, in this connection, that the child is in- 

 stinctively interested in the things of Nature. He is interested 

 in birds; in the real living bird, and this interest ought surely to 

 ripen with the years. Thrice blessed the lad who has 



