1^6 The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



you your joyous life— gurgling over with happiness. And the 

 stream babbles its story to the river,— but let Tennyson's 

 "Brook" or our own Geo. Frederick Scott's "Why Hurry, 

 Little River " tell us that delightful story. And the river moves 

 on with calm and easy motion and gives up— no, it only lends— 

 its waters to the sea. And the sea says : Have I not enough 

 and to spare ? I will call up the bright god of day, and this 

 very night when he comes down to bathe and refresh himself in 

 my depths, we will think over a plan to pay back those givers who 

 have poured their tribute without stint into my broad bosom ; 

 and the clouds alone shall be let into the secret. And the clouds, 

 blushing all over with joy and pride at the importance of their 

 secret, said : To-morrow morning we will put on our wings and 

 call the winds to help us, and we will fill up the founts of those 

 streams away off on the mountain side, and we will make fresher 

 the green grass and the leaves of the forest. And the leaves in a 

 flutter ot delight will whisper the secret to the mossy ground 

 beneath them. And the moss will hoard up the crystal drops in 

 cool retreats of forest and ravine, and yield them slowly to thirsty 

 streams in the parching drought of summer. 



And so the stories might be multiplied, and the "tairy tales of 

 science " with their generous substratum of scientific truth 

 might nourish many a boy and girl and give a joy and 

 perennial freshness to their whole lives. And this, I take it, is one 

 ot the great objects of nature-study— to develop a habit of mind 

 which only comes by training— the habit of discerning the 

 beautiful as well as the useful in the world, to distinguish the true 

 from the false, to cultivate a reverence for the God that is behind 

 nature and man. 



"I hate botany ! I hate the study of animals ! " I have heard 

 children say more than once. Perhaps we might find a reason 

 if we step into certain school-rooms and see some of the antiquat- 

 ed methods that still prevail in teaching about plants and animals; 

 to study the structure only and the names, and then fling the 

 wilted remains of the plants into the waste-basket ; or to make 

 collection of twenty-five or fifty plants of the neighbourhood, 

 mounted and labelled :— all very well if the study of botany does 

 1 i gin and end here. The study of the life of the plant, its 



