Cj^e Hutiutjon Societies! 



SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by ALICE HALL WALTER 



Address all communications relative to the work of this depart- 

 ment to the editor, 67 Oriole Avenue, Providence, R. I. 



A COURSE IN BIRD-STUDY FOR TEACHERS 



A very large and really difficult problem presents itself to any would-be 

 pedagogical savior of nature-study in our secondary schools. It is a problem 

 that is engaging the attention of educators in xliiiferent parts of the country, 

 whose efforts to solve it wisely bid fair to open up many new and delightful 

 methods to teachers, and equally new and delightful methods to pupils. That 

 these methods should level and bridge over the ordinary chasm between 

 learner and instructor is the ultimate test of their success, and the best criterion 

 by which they can be judged. 



In order to discuss this somewhat abstract subject of method as related to 

 teachers and pupils, it may not be out of place, in this Bird and Arbor Day 

 number of Bird-Lore, to describe in detail the work of a school which has 

 felt out its own method of teaching and learning bird- and nature-study, not in 

 the regular school year or by any regular method, but during the six hottest 

 weeks of summer, in ways that have seemed best suited to the time and season. 



To begin with, the school is not an ordinary summer school with respect 

 either to its location, management, or purpose. Located at Cold Spring 

 Harbor, about thirty odd miles east of New York City, on the north shore 

 of Long Island Sound, and separated from the village bearing that name 

 by a sheltered harbor of some size, that is nearly cut off from the main 

 harbor to the north by a peculiar spit of sand, and which connects to the 

 south through a transition marsh (i.e. a marsh where salt and fresh water 

 meet), with four fresh- water lakes and ponds in the heart of beautiful wood- 

 land, the situation of this school is unusual, both as regards a varied environ- 

 ment and exceptional opportunities for study. Originally founded and still 

 continuing under the auspices of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 

 it has now formed a connection with the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies in relation to the bird- and nature-study courses which it offers. 



Its management is unique, for several reasons: First, because its director is a 

 scientific investigator of international reputation, who is most widely known as 

 the head of the Carnegie Institution of Experimental Evolution, and also of 

 the Eugenics Record Office, open to students of heredity, both of which 

 foundations are located at Cold Spring Harbor, on the same plot with the 

 summer school; and, second, because it is quite isolated from the village, and 

 is maintained as a large home with respect to its social and domestic relations. 

 Aside from the fact that the school is surrounded by large estates, some of 



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