292 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:6— Sept., 1915 



Last summer I gave a prize to the pupil destroying the most 

 tent caterpillar nests and this winter I offered a prize to the pupil 

 bringing the greatest number of nests of the eggs and the boy who 

 received the prize brought 1,535 nests which will make quite a 

 difference in the number of worms to hatch in the spring. 



Some of the parents have said to me that they had learned more 

 about birds and weeds since their children had come to school to 

 me than they ever knew about them before. I asked them if it 

 did not make life pleasanter for them and they said it certainly 

 did, so you see this work is not only making life pleasanter for the 

 pupils but the parents as well. 



I will close by giving part of the pupils school yell which is as 

 follows : 



"We have worked, we are working, we will work! 



We are the pupils who do not shirk!!" 

 They are certainly doing good work in other branches of school 

 work as well as in the nature work. 



Hoping this will be something such as you wanted and thanking 

 you for the "Bird Note Book" I remain, 



Sincerely yours, 

 (Mrs.) Hattie Crandall. 



The Public School as a Neighborhood Centre 



Mabel Carney 



People living in the country, especially in the thinly settled 

 parts see, often with a tightening of the heart strings, the leaves 

 fall, the shortening days darken, roads grow rough, and hard to 

 travel, skies gray, cold and cheerless, and animate life take on a 

 hush, knowing well that these are the precuisors of long silences 

 ahead till spring with the returning sun brings back renewal of 

 life with flowers to the field and birds to the open country. In 

 summer in these same places the danger of making life "all work 

 and no play" is very great, while both the isolation and drudgery 

 dishearten young people, and rob them of rightful joys in life, 

 while some of their highest powers are atrophied through lack of 

 use. For this reason provision should be made there for play 

 and for the cultivation and development of the social instinct 

 common to all. 



