194 Bird -Lore 



"And so the witch-hazel, knowing that neither boy nor girl, 

 nor bird nor beast nor wind, will come to the rescue of its little 

 ones, is obliged to take matters into its own hands, and this is 

 what it does." This is an extreme case of humanizing. The writer 

 states that this brainless plant knows that its seeds will not be 

 scattered by children, animals or wind. This implies that the plant 

 is conscious of its seeds ; that it realizes the importance of their 

 distribution ; that it knows what bo3's, girls, birds, animals and 

 wind are : that it knows how the seeds of other plants are distri- 

 buted ; and that it plans a method of scattering its own seed ! This 

 is certainly more mental power than we are warranted in ascribing 

 to a plant. But children are much interested in the story, and 

 think the witch-hazel very clever to plan so ingenious a way of 

 distributing its seeds. That it is not true does not trouble them, 

 because they do not know it, and I can learn of very few teachers 

 using this book, who have thought enough about the subjects treated 

 to realize that they are so humanized as to be untrue to their own 

 natures. I quote this as an instance of the lengths to which hu- 

 manizing may be carried without discovery by the average reader. 



Humanizing the creatures takes them out of their own place 

 in Nature, by endowing them with powers higher than they can 

 really possess. It sets aside all the laws of evolution, and is not 

 only untrue to the nature of the individual, but to the principles 

 which underlie all Nature. Young children ai'e not ready for these 

 general laws and principles, but it cannot be good pedagogics to 

 give them ideas in direct contradiction to all those laws which 

 must be taught them a little later, and which will at once prove 

 the falseness of this earlier teaching. 



"Interest" is not everything in teaching children. Truth 

 counts for more in the long run, and, especially in Nature study. 

 may be made quite as interesting as '• humanization." 



'On the Ethics of Caging Birds' 



To THK Editor of ' Bird-Lork: ' 



I thank you for offering me an opportunity to be heard in 

 my own defense. But controversy is — if possible- — more dis- 

 tasteful to me than injustice. Therefore, while it is painful to be 

 misrepresented, I will answer my critics only by saying that they 

 have entirely — I do not say wilfully — misunderstood me, and that 

 no one who knows me could for an instant believe me guilty of 

 "favoring" or "encouraging," the caging, the w^earing, or the eating 

 of our little brothers, the birds. q,^,^.^, Thorne Mii.lkr. 



