3i8 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



The Action of "Efficiency Experts." 



On Staten Island is a natural history 

 museum of which Arthur Hollick is 

 Curator-in-Chief, and Howard J. Clea- 

 ves Curator. There are other workers 

 in the museum that have been efficient, 

 but most of us that know anything 

 about it know the remarkably efficient 

 part that Howard H. Cleaves has taken 

 in the upbuilding of the institution. He 

 is known world-wide as a first-class, 

 able young man with a life devotion 

 for natural history. But recently the 

 "efficiency experts" of the Board of Es- 

 timates of New York thought to save 

 some dollars, so they looked over the 

 museum, spending as much as a half 

 hour there, and in that they assumed 

 to learn of all that Mr. Cleaves had 

 done in many years. They decided to 

 remove him from the payroll. 



The public emphatically disagreed 

 with these conservators of public funds, 

 and immediately a host of appreciators 

 put their hands into their pocketbooks 

 and contributed the amount needed for 

 the salary. It is hard to understand 

 how the "efficiency experts" could have 

 thought that the museum could get 

 along without Mr. Cleaves, and it is al- 

 so difficult to understand why a coterie 

 of appreciators should be obliged to 

 bear the expenses of Mr. Cleaves's pub- 

 lic service. A Staten Island newspaper, 

 "The Richmond County Advance," 

 says : 



"From the way they acted about the 

 work they might have been a lot of 

 plumbers before they became efficiency 

 experts. They are the kind of men who 

 would go to the capitol and look over 

 the president's record for the past year 

 and then have nerve enough to go in 

 the senate and tell them the president 

 ought to be fired." 



All know that Mr. Cleaves had made 

 his influence felt everywhere in behalf 

 of the highest kind of nature study 

 work. He has influenced wealthy Sta- 

 ten Islanders to provide for the birds 

 by erecting bird houses, bird baths and 

 feed places on their estates. He has a 

 powerful influence among the Boy 

 Scouts and other young persons that 

 have proved themselves friends of the 

 birds. 



The museum is to have a new build- 



ing. It is to be hoped that the powers 

 that be will come to their senses and 

 will recognize the reprehensible thing 

 they did when they tried to dispense 

 with the services of this thoroughly ef- 

 ficient and hard working young man. 



HOWARD J. CLEAVES. 



"A good naturalist and a royal good fellow, which 



nobody can deny." 



New York City has reason to be proud 

 of Mr. Cleaves, and will have greater 

 reason for pride as the years go by. He 

 is the right man for the place or for a 

 place a good deal bigger. 



Truth through Error. 



"These spades are still the abode of 

 gladness." 



Every lover of the forest and of Bry- 

 ant's beautiful poem knew that this 

 funny statement is a typographical er- 

 ror, and that we meant not spades but 

 shades. Yet perhaps the printer, 

 through an error, spoke another im- 

 portant truth, if he used the word 

 spades as emblematic of labor. Blessed 

 is the man who has found his work ! To 

 him a spade is the symbol of gladness. 



