-'8 THE NA TURE-STUDY REVIEW u . ,_,,,., igcS 



men" who regard us as "unintelligible?" —possibly as harmless 

 lunatics or hopeless idiots, I venture to add. 



Edward F. Bigelow. 

 Office of the 



Agassiz Association, 

 Stamford, Conn. 



ARE CHILDREN NATURALLY NATURALISTS? 



A Series of Letters from Readers 



I 



By CLAYTON F. PALMER 



State Normal School, Los Angeles, Calif. 



The article in the November number with the title, "Are 

 Children Naturally Naturalists?" appeals to me as being pecul- 

 iarly frank. And now we may rind ourselves wondering why 

 this view has not been more generally voiced before. But I sus- 

 pect that as biologists we have been over-zealous of the im- 

 portance of biological subject-matter, and perhaps a bit fearful 

 lest the physical sciences have an opportunity competitively to 

 show what they can accomplish in the elementary school nature- 

 study work. Many of us, I believe, must accept Professor 

 Bigelow's contention; and doubtless some of us find in his 

 article an expression of a truth that has been haunting us for 

 some time; and yet, for one reason or another, we had not 

 reached the point where we were ready to confess our convictions. 



That now and then a naturalist is "born and not made," no 

 one can doubt; but that many naturalists, if not most of them, 

 were made, may not meet with general admission at first. And 

 while each of us probably shows somewhere in the warp or woof 

 of his nature a stronger or weaker tendency in certain directions, 

 is it not true that one may find a considerable and real interest in 

 any one of several vocations or avocations, should circumstances 

 conspire to acquaint him with the essentials of the same? 



Is a child naturally fond of animals? How manv children are 

 ever given the opportunity to indicate their natural atcitude 

 towards animals sufficiently to enable us to answer this question? 

 Most young children, at least, show a natural interest in dogs, 

 cats and other animals, seen at a distance. It is apparently the 

 activity, however, that attracts them, just as a mechanical toy 

 might hold their interest for a time But when these pets are 



