470 



THE GUIDE T( ) NATURE 



study of his favorite subject does not, 

 of course, go to nature for herself, but 

 he goes to save his butchers' bills. 

 Never mind if he is a professor who 

 is receiving eight thousand dollars a 

 year, or a business man whose time is 

 worth two or three dollars an hour. 

 It is a great, practical saving if he goes 

 out and tramps with four or five assis- 

 tants whose time is as valuable as his 

 own, and brings home mushrooms 

 that are equivalent in a pecuniary 

 value to perhaps a pound of beefsteak 

 that would cost some twenty-two or 

 twenty-three cents. It would not be 

 manly to have gone for the sake of go- 

 ing. This harmless, laughable, little 

 hypocritical deception is very nicely 

 stated in the following by Dallas Lore 

 Sharp : 



"And the collecting of mushrooms 

 is, after all, their real value. Our 

 stomachs are too much with us. It 

 is well enough to beguile ourselves 

 with large talk of rare flavors, high 

 per cent, of proteids, and small butch- 

 er's bills ; but it is mostly talk. It 

 gives a practical, businesslike complex- 

 ion to our interest and excursions; it 

 backs up our accusing consciences at 

 the silly waste of time with a show cf 

 thrift and economy ; but here mush- 

 room economy ends. There is about 

 as much in it as there is of cheese in 

 the moon. No doubt tons and tons of 

 this vegetable meat go to waste every 

 day in the woods and fields, just as the 

 mycologists say; nevertheless, accord- 

 ing to my experience, it is safer and 

 cheaper to board at a first class hotel 

 than in the wilderness upon this 

 manna, bounty of the skies though it 

 be. 



"It is the hunt for mushrooms, the 

 introduction through their door into a 

 new and wondrous room of the out- 

 of-doors, that makes mycology worthy 

 and moral. The genuine lover of the 

 out-of-doors, having filled his basket 

 with fungi, always forces his day's 

 gleanings upon the least resisting 

 member of the party before he reaches 

 home, while he himself feeds upon the 

 excitement of the hunt, the happy men- 

 tal rest, the sunshine of the fields, and 

 the flavor of the woods." 



Another insidious, subtle ami yet 

 none the less pernicious foe is in the 

 teaching of nature in the school room. 

 It is the outcome of this half-hearted- 

 ness of teachers whose consciences are 

 never quite satisfied as to whether na- 

 ture is read)- worth while or not. It is 

 not perhaps so much their ineffective 

 methods of teaching as it is their half- 

 heartedness, and uncertainty. 



Or perhaps they are honest in the 

 belief that nature is really worth while, 

 but they feel that they must have an 

 excuse or a mask under which to pre- 

 sent the subject to the practical voters 

 of the district and to the matter-of- 

 fact school supervisors. So they have 

 tried to dodge the main issue as a mat- 

 ter of diplomacy and are calling it 

 "elementary agriculture" because for- 

 sooth that will make good farmers who 

 can earn a better living, or they are in- 

 terested in birds and talk openly of all 

 their heartfelt love of birds and how 

 humanity will go to the demnition bow 

 wows if we do not stop killing the 

 birds, or we shall be eaten up by in- 

 sects, and how all foods will triple and 

 quadruple their cost if we do not stop 

 killing the money-saving and money- 

 earning birds. 



Bosh ! Away with all this sham ; go 

 at it openly and frankly. I detest 

 hypocrisy in nature study as much as 

 in any other phase of human action. 

 Here is a new magazine. It comes to 

 us with a charming bit of sentiment 

 and of general inspirational value but 

 the editor, bless his dear heart, is a 

 little afraid to come out and say, "Here 

 is something that shall portray to you 

 what nature really means to you." 

 Though he calls it "Nature and Cul- 

 ture" he conspicuously prints as a mot- 

 to on the magazine, on his letter heads 

 and even on the advertising rates, 

 "Save the Birds or Lose the Trees." It 

 is euphonious, well balanced, epigram- 

 atic and in good English. But we seri- 

 ously object to it because it cloaks a 

 pernicious doctrine. The birds are 

 worth while in themselves whether we 

 have trees or do not have trees, and 

 whether the insects eat us up or do 

 not ; the cultural value of nature is 

 not in the dollars nor the trees which 



