the instances where he has never seen 

 the bird nor any like it. As to his 

 mental state, we can say that the bird 

 rises directly to the focal point in his 

 mind, and it is not the bird picture 

 that holds him but the bird itself. 

 For teaching purposes this is peculiarly 

 fortunate, for the child is ready to 

 grasp any suggestion from the teacher 

 in order to enjoy the bird more at 

 length. All the subjects of school 

 work will ordinarily appeal to the 

 child, rising readily into the focus of 

 attention where the bird, its relations, 

 its acts, and things pertaining to it, 

 become the material for school activity. 



This liveliness and readiness are 

 not so manifest where mounted speci- 

 mens are used, because the element of 

 death becomes focal at the first instant, 

 is displaced with difficulty, and con- 

 tinually recurs with sickening fre- 

 quency during the exercise. The acts 

 associated with the capture and death 

 of the bird are too dangerously strong 

 to be avoided. They should by no 

 means be suggested. 



Mr. Ainia B. Morton puts it in this 

 way: Why do children like colored 

 pictures to abstraction ? Because the 

 child is father to the man. And what 

 do we love more than tone and color, 

 music and pictures? It is an inherent 

 quality, the soul of life leading us 

 back to nature, the All-mother. We 

 have hung up pictures and maps of a 

 poor quality before the class for years, 

 and then lectured away at them ad 

 iiifLuituDi and ad nauseam^ thinking, 

 because we understood, that the child 

 also understood. But this is not so. 

 We nearly always suppose too much, 

 especially in lower grades. 



Diesterweg said: "If you speak 

 about a calf in the school room, bring 

 it in and show it.'' This principle is 

 still true to-day. All things in nature, 

 as far as possible, should be present hi 

 propria persona. Where not possible, 

 we must try to approach that ideal by 

 bringing the very best, and natural 

 pictures of the objects, that is colored 

 ones, and the vivid imagination of the 

 child does the rest. It does not see 

 the picture, the object itself is there, 

 nature has entered the school room. 



So we learn that bird study, aided 

 by color photographs, is psychologically 

 the most valuable means to the attain- 

 ment of school ends. It is attractive 

 to the young mind because it furnishes 

 material which rises most readih- to 

 the focal point in the mind. It re- 

 lieves teacher and pupil of the strain 

 attendant upon work where it is diffi- 

 cult to get the class to "pay attention." 

 It is chiefly adapted to growing minds. 

 No m.atter how strongly the matnred 

 mind with its powers of abstract think- 

 ing may be drawn toward it, it is yet 

 more attractive to the mind that has 

 not been trained to any sort of re- 

 straint. To get the best results, bird 

 study should not be conducted with a 

 view to storing the child's mind with 

 scientific knowledge, nor for the sole 

 purpose of employing it effectively to 

 teach language and other branches of 

 school effort. But it should be pur- 

 sued as a mode of activity which, 

 developes mind, acknowledging the 

 fortunate circumstance that school 

 learning and bird knowledge will both 

 be acquired at the same time, although 

 they are not the direct objects of the 

 pursuit. 



