PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 31 



exclusively to country life have appeared; established magazines offer 

 in every number descriptions and stories of plant and animaKlife; 

 nature story books have flooded the market; every town and ^village 

 has its improvement association ; and amateur gardening and landscape 

 architecture are discussed in clubs. These are signs of the times read 

 by everyone. There are other signs less conspicuous and less numerous 

 than the foregoing, but which are to some men still more significant. 

 These are the rehabilitation of many of the old local scientific societies 

 which flourished a generation ago all over Michigan, and the formation 

 at several points in the State of nature study clubs. I remember six 

 to eight years ago a conversation which I ha<l with a friend, in which 

 we expressed regret at the decline of interest in nature study as evi- 

 denced by the death of local scientiflc societies. The impending dis- 

 tribution of the collections of the Kent t^cientific Institute of (iJrand 

 Rapids was the occasion of our remarks. We agreed that these local 

 scientific societies came into existence when the intelligent people in 

 comparatively new settlements found themselves face to face with un- 

 known geological formations, unknown ])lants and animals. The work 

 of these societies consisted in identifying, collecting and preserving in 

 museums the fossils, plants, and animals of the vicinity. As time passed, 

 the field was worked over, and the interest of the society flagged. In the 

 collections, dust covered the fossils, and the snakes became mummies 

 as the alcohol evaporated. I^ut there has come an awakening. It is 

 perceived that there is a new world to explore containing better treasures 

 than the identifying of i)lant and animal forms with which the past 

 generation in this territory busied themselves. The search is to be not 

 only for the ichaf, but for the how and irhi/. Eow were these hills formed, 

 how these terraces, and how this plain? Why is this plant society- char- 

 acteristic of the sand ]>lains, and this other societ^^ of the bogs? How 

 can this stretch of barren land be made to produce, and how should 

 this hillside be cultivated to prevent loss of fertility? These are the 

 questions with which nature stud^^ clubs ])roj)ose to concern themselves. 

 Of still greater import than the revival of nature study societies is 

 the clear tendency of biological training in the ]>rimary and secondary 

 schools, and also in the colleges, toward field work. And who can forsee 

 the demands of the rural schools? The city teacher complains that the 

 country is inaccessible from his school, that he cannot control his pupils 

 on excursions, that it is impossible to make field work disci])linarv ; and 

 college professors have written much which seems to demonstrate that 

 boys and girls must learn structure and function in the laboratory before 

 they can understand nature afield. Kut in s])ite of the difficulties to be 

 overcome, we all expect to see schools giving more and more of their time 

 to field work. But it will not be the field work of twenty years ago. 

 The pupil must learn the names of plants and animals, but he will 

 understand that his main task is the discovery and perception of rela- 

 tions. The goal is the pupil's intelligent contemplation of nature. He 

 is to look about him to perceive the geology, the climatology, the biology. 

 No doubt the vision will be imperfect, but it will become better defined 

 as time goes on. A ]>hysiogra])hic and natural history survey will be 

 the pupil's guide book to the region in which he lives. It will give him 

 the general outline of geological history and of plant and animal societies. 



