32 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



That may be considered or misconsidered as 

 nature study. It is not made clear which point 

 of view is intended, but the tendency seems 

 to be to classify it as a camp of amusement. 

 Yet if we call it nature study, it is the only 

 illustrative portrayal of nature study in all 

 tie thirty-two full page pictures. One to 

 thirty-two is not a large percentage. 



The occupations that are shown are attract- 

 ive to young girls and are undoubtedly effi- 

 cient in securing enrollments at the camp. 

 Without lessening any of the advertising val- 

 ue of the catalogue, that value might have 

 been increased by mentioning some of nature's 

 attractions in the camo. These young girls 

 should be shown that there is something to be 

 gained by living by a pond, and something 

 more in the woods than ordinary athletic 

 amusement, riding, walking and similar occu- 

 pations that could be indulged in in the citv 

 home. It pains a nature student to think of 

 these young girls in such nearness to all the 

 wonders of these beautiful woods, the camp, 

 the mountains, and fail to show them, or at 

 least fail to include in the catalogue, any of 

 the wonders of plants, insects, trees and, more 

 than all, of the stars that there, remote from 

 the city's electric lights, can be seen in all 

 their brillancy. The Picture of these girls 

 walking on a country road might have given 

 us even a little intimation that somewhere 

 they had noticed some of the interesting 

 things by the side of the road. 



This camp is doing a great and good work 

 in athleticism and in the development of 

 womanhood, but why allow these youna' 

 people to pass a gold mine where the" gold 

 lies loose on the ground, without telling them 

 to pick up at least one little lump a« "a sou- 

 venir if for nothing more. The camp is hav- 

 ing a good influence on the development of the 

 girl physically, and the catalogue shows one 

 girl in the act of thinking. An entire pa»e is 

 devoted to that, a page that, to my mind, is 

 one of the most expressive and beautiful in 

 the entire catalogue. It is marked : "Yallani ' 

 Thinking It is Good to Have Quiet Mo- 

 ments Like These." Notwithstanding all its 

 excellencies there can easilv be an improve- 

 ment. That girl comes apparently from the 

 city, and yet she is here seen surrounded bv 

 the things of the city — a couch and furniture. 

 She could just as well have tausht the value 

 of sitting still on a log or a rock in the woods 

 as she gazed at good old Mother Nature. She 

 could mentally imbibe some of the woods and 

 fields, woods and fields that she cannot see in 

 the citv. The reader will recall how Brad- 

 ford Torrey said that his whole life was in- 

 fluenced by the sight of a man looking at Nat 

 Shaw's havstack and the did barn beyond. It 

 would have been better to have used that 

 space to show that girl gazing, not at the 

 pole and railing and floor of the tent, but, 

 outside of the tent, at a tree or a cluster of 

 wild lilies or the falling waters of a pictur- 

 esque ravine. 



These girls should be taken not to nature 

 but into nature; not to have nature like a shell 

 around them but to be a part and parcel of the 

 very fiber of their being. They may return 

 from the woods and the lakeside to their citv 



homes inspired and enriched bv an intimacy 

 with old Mother Nature herself. 



Manual of Fruit Diseases. Bv Lex R. Hes- 

 ler, A. B., Ph. D., and Herbert Hice 

 Whetxel, A. B., M. A. New York 

 City: The Macmillan Company. 

 This manual presents all the known facts 

 with reference to the common diseases of 

 fruits. It has been prepared primarily for 

 the modern agriculturist, the farmer, the 

 thinking fruit grower, but it will also be 

 of service to all who have an interest in 

 plant diseases. The fruits are taken up in 

 alphabetical order. The discussion of the 

 diseases proceeds in order of their impor- 

 tance and prominence in the LJnited States. 

 Particular attention is paid to the descrip- 

 tion and illustration of the symptoms, to 

 the causes and to the generally accepted 

 symptoms, to the causes and to the generally 

 accepted measures of control. Technical 

 details are omitted as far as possible and 

 an effort has been made to present the mat- 

 ter in a popular fashion. 



How to Live* By Irving Fisher and Eugene 

 Lyman Fisk, M. D. New York City: 

 Funk and Wagnalls Company. 

 The frontispiece is a magnificent photo- 

 graph of our handsome, genial Ex-Pre;ident, 

 William Howard Taft. He is the chairman 

 of the Board of Directors of the Life Ex- 

 tension Institute, Incorporated, and is him- 

 self personally a pretty good exemplification 

 of that for which the society stands There 

 are also about sixty portraits of members of 

 the Hygiene Reference Board. These por- 

 traits alone make the book worth its price. I 

 am inclined to think that they are as import- 

 ant as the text as examples of physical de- 

 velopment and desirable longevity. The vol- 

 ume is not large, but it is encyclopedic in char- 

 acter, covering, as it does, almost every ques- 

 tion of living except the question of making 

 enough money with which to live. Here you 

 can learn what kind of house to live in, what 

 clothes to wear, how to breathe, what food to 

 get, how to work, play, rest, sleep, with mis- 

 cellaneous suggestions as to general hygiene 

 thrown in without extra charge. The book 

 looks after not only the present generation 

 but those of the future in an ineresting post- 

 script chapter entitled "Eugenics," with com- 

 mendable sections on alcohol and tobacco. 

 If we do not live forever, or at least for more 

 than a hundred years, it surely will not be the 

 fault of this book. 



Laurel. 



Like rose of the sunrise brought down from 

 the sky, 

 These exquisite blossoms appear; 

 The cup of earth's beauty they fill to the 

 brim, 

 The crowning delight of the year. 



— Emma Peirce. 



