u6 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



The Esoteric Few. 



Years ago I read in "The Literary 

 Times" of New York City an extended 

 review of some nature book — I have 

 forgotten what or by whom, but one 

 expression in that essay has clung to 

 my memory and to it I frequently 

 make mental reference. The reviewer 

 said, "The worst thing and perhaps 

 the only really bad thing about all 

 these naturalists is their assumption 

 that they are 'the esoteric few.' : That 

 collocation of words impressed me 

 chiefly because I did not understand 

 it. Why should the reviewer make 

 that charge against the naturalists? I 

 had been trying to teach the true dem- 

 ocracy of nature and to interest all 

 classes of people in nature. What was 

 there esoteric or exclusive about that? 

 As an outcome of my desire to be 

 helpful I started The Guide to 

 Nature. Since then I have learned 

 about "the esoteric few." This morn- 

 ing there comes to my desk a letter 

 from a famous specialist in mosses. 

 He says : 



"But really T am unable to see what 

 articles on millionaires' country farms 

 have to do with nature and I am not 

 the only one." 



Occasionally there are other letters 

 that come to my desk and voice this 

 same inquiry. The whole cause of 

 this misunderstanding of nature, the 

 great drawback to its popularization are 

 "the esoteric few." The owner of the 

 automobile, or the owner of a fine 



estate which is only an exhibition of 

 nature under good care, looks upon 

 the naturalist as a queer being and may 

 call his place of work a "bug house," 

 implying that he delves in things un- 

 canny and disagreeable. To most peo- 

 ple the man who peers into the micro- 

 scope to study the leaves of a moss is 

 so expressive of "the esoteric few" that 

 he cannot understand how men can 

 look with unaided eyes over a beauti- 

 ful landscape and find exactly the same 

 pleasure that he finds in the beautiful 

 cells of Milium. If there is any one 

 ideal that this magazine hopes to real- 

 ize it is to be democratic and to make 

 a universal get-together club. Classes 

 and masses clashing against one, 

 another are as reprehensible in the 

 service of Mother Nature as anywhere 

 else. In my opinion the man who 

 exploits a large phase of nature to the 

 public is as truly a naturalist as the 

 one who, for an entire evening at a 

 microscopical exhibition, presides over 

 a compound microscope. The man 

 who studies, cares for and loves a tree 

 on his premises is as much a naturalist 

 as the man who has the same feeling 

 regarding a mineral in his cabinet. 



Most of the trouble in this world is 

 caused by the unkindness of other per- 

 sons. A naturalist with a good micro- 

 scope, a good collection, plenty of zeal 

 and a little money is apt to look jeal- 

 ously upon the nature lovers who walk 

 through their beautiful gardens or ride 

 in an automobile through a beautiful 



