n6 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



Our Summer School. 



Monday, June 21st, will be the open- 

 ing day for our first annual summer 

 school of nature in Arcadia. It will 

 close on Friday, July 9th. The school 

 will hold this session without fail, even 

 if there be but one pupil and that one 

 be Edward F. Bigelow. Wouldn't you 

 like to join with him and be able to 

 say in future years, when Arcadia 

 shall be greater than it is to-day, "I 

 was a member of the first' nature 

 school held in Arcadia, Sound Beach, 

 Connecticut?" 



And do not forget that we are all 

 children in the study of God's works, 

 and however great may be our at- 

 tainments, we are all only beginners. 

 The school will welcome you to the 

 limit of its capacity whether you are 

 nine or ninety, whether or not you 

 know a clam from a mussel, a dande- 

 lion from a buttercup, a blue jay from 

 a kingfisher: whether or not you are 

 a member of the kindergarten depart- 

 ment or a savant. 



But wait a moment. Perhaps we 

 can get to the gist of the thing by 

 a briefer method. We will not accept 

 you as a pupil unless you have a gen- 

 uine interest in at least some ohase of 

 this wonderful and beautiful world, 

 and express a desire to know more. 

 Your presence here will be a tacit ad- 

 mission of such interest and desire, 

 and nothing more is necessary. Ar- 

 cadia is not a place in which to pass 



the idle days of a summer vacation. 

 It is not a place in which "to loaf 

 and possess your soul" in empty day- 

 dreaming, although for those purposes 

 no region can be better adapted. It 

 is a place for serious work, for earn- 

 est thought and for mental exertion. 

 If you come, it must be with these 

 facts in mind. Recreation will not be 

 entirely absent. But that will come 

 only after the work has been done for 

 the dav. 



The Central Idea. 



There is a vide range, it must be 

 admitted, in the conversational en- 

 thusiasm of a sailing trip (with jocose 

 references to the Fat One), in the en- 

 thusiastic study of the tobacco beetle, 

 in elaborate biological arguments re- 

 lative to a deformed claw, and in sev- 

 eral other articles in this number 

 which, perhaps, is wider in range of 

 topics and of treatment than any pre- 

 vious number. 



But after all the amplitude is per- 

 haps not so great as it seems. A little 

 analysis and comparison will show 

 the reader that each topic is true to 

 the central idea of The Guide to 

 Nature and that it is in direct edu- 

 cational relation with some phase of 

 nature, especially with what it gives 

 us pleasure to call "commonplace 

 nature with uncommon interest." The 

 writers on these topics and on others 

 in this number have found instruction 



