POPULAR MISCELLANY 



571 



dred and fifty or two hundred, and found that 

 everything could be taught by historic plays 

 and games. Then we began the history of 

 games, and found that education used to be 

 play, and now it has become hard work. A 

 little while ago older people used to play. It 

 was the spontaneous activity. We have com- 

 posed a programme of all the school studies 

 taught only by plays and games. I won't say 

 that it is yet practicable ; I simply say it can 

 be done. It shows that spontaneities have 

 done everything, just as in the world every- 

 thing we know has originally been spontane- 

 ity, either of geniuses or great discoverers or 

 inventors. I do not go so far as some enthu- 

 siasts, but we are realizing that everything in 

 Nature is to be found in the child. Nations 

 as well as associations, institutions as well as 

 colleges and schools, religions and everythhig 

 else, when judged by the highest standard of 

 right and wrong, will be pronounced good or 

 evil exactly in proportion as they have min- 

 istered and conformed to the nature and needs 

 of childhood, adolescence, and growth. That 

 civilization, that school, that college, is best 

 that has devised the most efficient methods 

 for this." 



A White Bear's Batb. The bath of the 

 younger bear in the London Zoological Gar- 

 dens is thus described in Mr. C. J. Cornish's 

 recently published Life at the Zoo : " Fresh 

 water is let into the bath two or three times 

 a week, and as soon as the bottom is covered 

 the younger bear rolls in and ' cuts capers,' 

 to use the keeper's phrase. She always pre- 

 fers to take a ' header,' but not after the or- 

 thodox fashion ; for when her nose touches 

 the bottom she turns a somersault slowly, 

 and then floats to the surface on her back. 

 Then she climbs out, shakes herself, and gal- 

 lops round the edge of the bath. In spite of 

 her bulk, this bear is as active as a cat, and 

 can go at speed round the circle without 

 pausing or missing a step. Her next object 

 is to find something to i)lay with in the wa- 

 ter. Anything will do ; but if nothing else 

 is handy, she usually produces a nasty bit of 

 stale fish, which she seems to keep hidden in 

 some handy place, and dives for it, coming 

 up to the surface with the fish balanced on 

 her nose, or on all four paws. If the water 

 is still running in, she will lie under the spout, 

 and let it run through her jaws. But the 



most amusing game which the writer has 

 seen was played with a large round stone. 

 After knocking it into the water and jump- 

 ing in to fish it out, she took it into her 

 mouth and tried to push it into the hole from 

 which the water was still running. This was 

 a difficult matter, for the stone was as large 

 as a tennis ball, and the pipe was not much 

 wider. Several times the stone dropped out, 

 though the bear held it delicately betsveen 

 her lips and tried to push it in with her 

 tongue. At last she sat up and, holding the 

 stone between her fore paws, put it up to the 

 pipe and pushed it in with her nose. This 

 was a great triumph, and she retired and con- 

 templated the result with much satisfaction. 

 Later, being apparently tired of this achieve- 

 ment, she threw water at it with her head, 

 and, failing to wash it down, picked it out 

 with her claws and went on diving for it in 

 the bath." 



Nature's Commerce. Even before the 

 first human commerce Nature, as Prof. 0. 

 T. Mason shows in his Technogeography, 

 had her great centers of superabounding 

 material, and took pains to convert this ex- 

 cess into supply against scarcity. Thus, all 

 over the earth bees gather honey from ephem- 

 eral plants that man can not eat, and store 

 it away in enduring form to be used in time 

 of need. In certain regions of California 

 the pifion seeds grew so abundantly that the 

 Indians could not gather them ; but the 

 squirrels laid them up in vast quantities, fed 

 on them in winter, and were themselves 

 eaten by the savages at a time when meat 

 diet was most necessary. They thus gave 

 the Indians a lesson in economy and storage. 

 As an example of the way in which Nature 

 uses the excess of one locality to supply the 

 dearth of another locality, Prof. Mason cites 

 the case of the wild rice, which covers thou- 

 sands of acres in some places along the Great 

 Lakes and feeds millions of waterfowl. These 

 same creatures are the source of food for 

 the Eskimos, who never saw a spear of grass 

 or ate a mouthful of vegetable diet. Seeds 

 of plants enter into migration by a natural 

 transportation through rivers and ocean cur- 

 rents, by means of winds and the agency of 

 birds, and set up in their progeny new cen- 

 ters of supply on distant shores. The most 

 marvelous of these commercial enterprises 



