VALUES OF NATURE STUDY 



19 



to the public good. No man has the right (and ignorance 

 cannot be pleaded as adequate excuse) to allow things to 

 breed upon his premises that may cause damage to his 

 neighbor. This fight for the good and against the bad in 

 nature is primordial and fundamental ; it has existed as 

 long as the human race ; it cannot and should not be set 

 aside by any considerations of a sentimental character, 

 but it should be made in our plan of public education 

 what it is and always has been in the education of the 

 race, the dominant idea in nature study. We cannot 

 expect intelligent observance of laws until the facts of 

 nature upon which they are based become common 

 property of the community. To lay this foundation for 

 right living is certainly one of the functions of a public- 

 school system. As it is now, few people know even the 

 names of the things that are doing the greatest harm 

 or the most good in their own gardens. Insect pests, 

 weed seeds, and the spores of destructive fungi are no 

 respecters of fences, and we must look to a rational nature 

 study to render universal the needed information. 



Finally, with many the financial motive is the strongest 

 one we can bring to bear to induce them to study or 

 allow their children to study nature. After a beginning 

 has been made, other, and so-called higher, motives may 

 develop. There is the greater need of enlarging upon the 

 economic motive because it has never been adequately 

 brought before the public. Our biological science has been 

 too largely a dead museum affair with little relation to the 

 life of the community. When we' study nature alive 

 and at work, we begin to realize the incalculable worth 

 of knowledge, the human value of science. A single 



