THE FUN OF SEEING THINGS 



167 



science, will incidentally have much 

 fun in it. There will be many a pleas- 

 ant little episode in the trip, hut in 

 spite of this, there is a danger, and it 

 is against that danger that we wish to 

 issue a caution, of making it too 

 schooly. There was a time when a 

 lecturer on almost any phase of nature 

 or of natural science could crowd the 

 largest hall or opera house with an 

 audience that went not for education 

 but for enjoyment, for the fun of it. 

 There is real fun in listening to a talk 

 accompanied by experiments, for ex- 

 ample, with liquid air. What greater 

 fun than to see a man boil a kettle of 

 water on a cake of ice? But unfor- 

 tunately in some unaccountable man- 

 ner the fun seems to have been taken 

 out of such portrayals. The moving 

 picture show of love scenes and bur- 

 glar escapades is taking the first place 

 in the fun of seeing things. 



In the word museumy is comprised 

 another great reason why nature in 

 popular estimation does not come to 

 her own. This is the sensational ele- 

 ment. I know, from many years of 

 experience in editing a department in 

 a leading magazine, that the demand 

 is more for the abnormal and the 

 startling, for the freaks and the de- 

 formities, such as one might find in 

 a dime museum, than for "common- 

 place nature with uncommon inter- 

 est." A museum seeks a variety of 

 natural objects, classifies and arranges 

 them in thorough, systematic order. 

 It also has a few unusual things that 

 may be called museumy. There is 

 the mummy from Egypt, the totem 

 pole from Alaska, and certain marvels 

 from other countries. These have 

 their place and that place is in a 

 museum. There is another kind of 

 museum that is in rivalry with the 

 moving picture show. It is a collec- 

 tion of freaks, the fat baby, the living 

 skeleton, and the snake charmer, ac- 

 companied by pom pom music and 

 gaudy banners. That is the dime 

 museum. When a magazine or a 

 writer on nature study seeks only the 

 abnormal, the startling things, the 

 freaks, we are reminded of the fat 

 woman, the bearded lady and the tat- 

 tooed man, to say nothing of the wild 

 man of Borneo. Such magazines and 

 writers are museumy. 



This department, "The Fun of See- 

 ing Things," is not schooly and not. 



museumy. It is to be real fun, not 

 merely pleasure. A boy does not go 

 fishing for pleasure ; he goes for fun. 

 A man does not go hunting for pleas- 

 ure ; he goes for fun. But the natural- 

 ist is none the less a fisher or a hunter, 

 yet he should go not as to a school 

 task, not as to a university task, not 

 to seek out the abnormal things, but 

 for the delight of using his eyes in a 

 world filled with myriads of wonder- 

 ful and beautiful things, for every 

 natural object, when looked at aright* 

 is wonderful and beautiful. I would 

 much prefer to see a beautiful normal 

 baby than to see the one portrayed by 

 a recent street banner and weighing 

 some hundreds of pounds. And, kind 

 reader, you agree with that preference. 

 Then I am sure that such a depart- 

 ment in this magazine that will en- 

 deavor to be not schooly, not mu- 

 seumy, will enlist your hearty co- 

 operation. 



I recently spent considerable time 

 in the elaborate private laboratory of 

 Mr. Frank J. Myers of Bethelem, 

 Pennsylvania. Mr. Myers is a thor- 

 ough student from the amateur point 

 of view of all forms of pond life. He 

 placed a Gammarus under the lens 

 and explained a variety of details in 

 its classification and structure, but 

 sedate as I ordinarily am, the one thing 

 that attracted me toward that inter- 

 esting form of animal life was the 

 manner in which it scampered around 

 the ring in which it was confined. The 

 fun of watching the mule and the 

 clown in the circus ring? The sight 

 of that Gammarus tumbling, scramb- 

 ling around the edge of that life box 

 was real fun. It first produced a smile 

 and then it brought a laugh, and I 

 confess that I had to leave the micro- 

 scope holding my sides with laughter 

 at the astonishing, ridiculous antics 

 and ring performance of that Gam- 

 marus. Honestly, reader, I have for- 

 gotten all about the classification. I 

 do not believe I could tell how many 

 legs that creature has, but so long as 

 I live I shall not forget, and probably 

 neither will my host, how I laughed 

 at the fun of seeing that ridiculous mi- 

 croscopical scampering. It was real 

 fun and if anything had been worrying 

 me that day I am sure that all would 

 have been forgotten, thanks to Gam- 

 marus. Now what that Gammarus 

 was to me I wish I could make nature 



