INTERPRETATION OF NATURE 119 



remembered of the country boy and girl. The 

 children had seen and studied the bobolink. They 

 had heard the liquid rattle of his song. They had 

 seen the nest in the grass. They had watched for 

 the Quaker wife. They had seen the purple-flecked 

 eggs. They knew that Robert of Lincoln would 

 soon leave them. The poem touched their hearts, 

 and they knew the bobolink better. 



With enthusiasm I related the experience to my 

 friend, the teacher of natural history in the college. 

 He checked my ardor. He saw only danger in 

 such teaching. It tends to looseness of ideas. It 

 makes the mind discursive. It does not fix and 

 fasten the attention on the subject-matter. It is 

 unscientific. The child could learn poetry by the 

 yard, he said, and yet not know how many toes the 

 bobolink has, nor the shape and size of its wings. 

 The pupil gains no comparative knowledge of bird 

 with bird. The poem is untrue. The bobolink is 

 not ^^ drest '^ : he has no clothes. He has no wife : 

 he is mated, not wed. 



I could only reply that the bobolink's toes have 

 little relation to men's lives, however much they 

 may have to bobolinks' lives ; but the bobolink may 

 mean much to men's lives. To a man studying 

 ornithology— and I wish there were more— the toes 

 are important ; but these men are desirous of 

 technical information, whereas I am seeking a fresh 

 and firmer hold on life. To be sure, I should 

 study the bobolink before I studied the poem ; but 

 I should want a real bobolink, not a stufTed 

 specimen. If I were obliged to choose between 



