252 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



be spent. Book after book, teacher 

 after teacher, suggests fields and woods, 

 freely flowing streams and broad skies, 

 as the necessary settings for nature. It 

 is only the occasional teacher that finds 

 nature everywhere, and succeeds in 

 bringing home to the city bound and 

 the work trammeled, the real use and 

 value of the seeing eye and the hearing 

 ear. 



What an enormous amount of in- 

 terest may be found in the simplest, 

 commonest things imaginable by one 

 who has learned that the effort is worth 

 while. Charles Darwin wrote a book 

 on the earthworm, the common angle- 

 worm, of every small boy that has had 

 the good fortune to live away from 

 city pavements. But Darwin came so 

 far from exhausting his subject, that 

 any small boy on any day could add an 

 interesting bit to the book. The com- 

 mon slug that I almost steoped on the 

 other day is a creature dull enough in 

 appearance, but learned men have 

 spent much time in trying to ascer- 

 tain how it walks, and have considered 

 the time well spent, yet they do not 

 know so much about it even now that 

 they have drained the subject dry of in- 

 terest for you and me. 



The busy corner of Fifth Avenue and 

 Forty-second Street in New York City 

 is not exactly the place that the average 

 person would select for a natural his- 

 tory ramble, unless, nerchance, he were 

 interested in the ornithology of mil- 

 linery, vet the starling that alights on 

 the gilded eagle that tons the Libra rv 

 flag Dole, and the little hawk that I 

 saw hovering above the tall buildings 

 across the street, are as full of interest- 

 ing habits as any of their cousins along 

 the country roads, but the number of 

 peoole who took any note of either was 

 probably less than the number of fin- 

 ders on anv one of my hands, and I 

 have the normal number of such digits. 



The fields and the hills, the trees and 

 the running brooks, all are wonderful- 

 ly good, and I would not give them up 

 for all that a great city has to offer, 

 but I would have it taught that nature 

 holds the fair leaves of her book wide 

 open to those who live in the city 

 streets, as well as to those whose lives 

 are "far from the madding: crowd," 

 "exempt from public haunt," and that 

 the one really great object of the teach- 



ing of nature study, wherever that 

 teaching is pursued, is to lead people, 

 through intelligent use of sight, hear- 

 ing, taste, touch, smell, and whatever 

 other senses there may be, to find 

 "good in everything." 



Nature Study and Elementary Agri- 

 culture. 



BY ANNA B0TSF0RD COMSTOCK, ITHACA, 



NEW YORK. 



[Reprinted from "Nature-Study Review."] 



(To those who have loved and 

 studied nature for her own sake, and 

 have labored to inculcate a real appre- 

 ciation of nature, it has been discour- 

 aging to note the "shop" phases, and 

 in some of our states, the play to the 

 taxpayer's gallery. It is nature that 

 should be kept in mind, not agriculture. 

 Love and known nature in as many 

 phases as possible, and there will be no 

 trouble in keeping the young folks on 

 the farm. After all, love is the greatest 

 thing in the world — far greater than 

 dollars and blue ribbons— even if that 

 love expresses itself in corn and cat- 

 tle, potatoes and pigs. Read the fol- 

 lowing carefully then reread it. — Ed.) 



In looking over the literature, includ- 

 ing text-books, outlines for study and 

 leaflets on elementary agriculture, we 

 are forced to the conclusion that a 

 comparatively limited amount of sub- 

 ject-matter may be thus taught. The 

 writers of these books and leaflets find 

 themselves restricted to lessons on the 

 care of poultry, the uses and treatment 

 of cattle and other stock, and methods 

 of raising a few of the common field 

 crops. In fact, there is a great dif- 

 ference in the amount of agriculture 

 which may be taught as such, in the 

 elementary schools and that which may 

 be taught in the high schools. 



The country teacher finds that when 

 she has had a corn show, a potato 

 show, or perhaps a show of some lead- 

 ing garden crop, she must repeat the 

 same next year, and too often the in 

 terest wanes after a year or two of this 

 competition. It is rare indeed when a 

 country school offers exhibits of this 

 kind, for three consecutive years. It 

 is natural for the children to get tired 

 of doing the same thing over and over 

 unless the premiums are so great as 

 to overcome this natural disinclination. 



It is with no thought of belittling the 



