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NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



Again, where do we find a better example of protective 

 coloration, harmony with environment, and life work? 

 This is a point of view that, when once appreciated, makes 

 interesting a thousand other things we shall see in nature. 

 Finally, the food of the toad shows the necessity of learn- 

 ing about insects and their work. Entomology as a science 

 is far too little studied in this country. 



On the ethical side, no animal is more apt to be griev- 

 ously abused by the children. Experience has shown that 

 a little instruction of the right kind wholly does away with 

 this and makes them its most sturdy protectors. What 

 child could ever again harm a toad after watching it catch 

 insects for an hour, or after raising a few from the egg ?^ 

 The study may thus yield the best kind of moral culture. 



Early in April, as I was vigorously hoeing in a corner, I 

 unearthed a huge toad, to my perfect delight and satisfaction ; he 



1 My attention to this subject, and, in fact, to nature study in general, 

 was aroused by the wholesale killing of toads when they came to the ponds 

 to lay their eggs. While walking once around a small pond I counted 200 

 dead or mangled and struggling in the water, and learned next day that two 

 boys had killed 300 more, carrying them off in an old milk can to empty 

 on a man's doorstep. This 500 does not represent probably one-tenth of 

 the number killed by the children that spring (1897) around this one pond. 

 A " civilization " in which such abuses of nature are possible ought to be 

 eaten alive by insects, and something must be fundamentally wrong with a 

 system of public education that does not render such a thing impossible. 

 My first impulse was to get a law passed and appeal to the police, but the 

 wiser counsel of a friend prevailed, and I was induced to try education of the 

 children instead. Accordingly, a prize of $10 was offered to the Worcester 

 school child who would make the best practical study of the " Value of the 

 Common Toad." This was offered March 31, 1898, and there was no 

 evidence that a single toad was harmed at the pond the following April 

 and May. I would have been well satisfied had such a result been attained 

 in five years. The fact that it came within thirty days reveals the possibility 

 of nature study when united to human interest. 



