SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by ALICE HALL WALTER 



Address all communications relative to the work of this depart- 

 ment to the editor, at 53 Arlington Avenue. Providence, R. I. 



A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO AUDUBON 

 SOCIETIES 



THE COMING GENERATION 



In view of the fact that so much interest is being shown in Junior Audubon 

 Societies, and various clubs for young people devoted to the study of outdoor 

 life, it seems fitting that at least once each year we should devote the space 

 of the School Department to the boys and girls in whom we have so much 

 hope, and for whom we are chiefly working. 



We sometimes speak of "the coming generation" as though it was not 

 already with us, projecting our thoughts into the future instead of focusing 

 them upon the young folk around us. Perhaps this is one of the underlying 

 reasons why there is often an apparent lack of sympathy between the grown- 

 ups and children of a community, the one class being absorbed in and anxious 

 to solve the problem of an ideal generation to come, while the other, marked 

 by the eager impulsiveness of youth, grows up in reality without the atten- 

 tion and actual contact it deserves. This may seem a strange statement to make 

 in view of the numberless agencies at work to raise the standard of teaching 

 children, to better their condition at home and elsewhere, to provide suitable 

 and adequate amusements for them, to supply all of their needs from the 

 purely physical to the esthetic and spiritual, — in short, to make the material 

 world and the moral, ideal for their use and upbringing in conformity with 

 the most advanced theories of the age. 



It is not, however, a mistaken point of view or a prejudiced one, for, if we 

 will only stop to consider how few adults are able to see things as a child does, 

 how very few are able to enjoy life as a child does, and how rare are those who 

 are children in spirit all through the years entrusted to them, we must confess 

 that much of our professed interest in youth is theoretical, and that the ordi- 

 nary attitude of the mature person is one of aloofness to the coming generation. 



One of the effective agencies in bringing the elders and children of to-day 

 together is the inexhaustible world of Nature. In most matters we discrim- 

 inate between what is suitable for the child and w^hat for his seniors, but in 

 nature-study, there is no necessity for classing things as ju^'enile or adult. 

 From the starry heavens above to the depths of ocean and canon there is 



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