The Days of a Man ni874 



dissected all the available fish forms and made 

 anatomical drawings of them. During the winter 

 she secured a position as teacher in a San Francisco 

 kindergarten founded by Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper — 

 a prominent local figure in the social and educational 

 circles of that period — and later endowed by Mrs. 

 "Story of Leland Stanford. There it happened that one day 

 a Stone" y[[^^ Macdouald related to her young charges 

 "The Story of a Stone," which she heard me give 

 in Appleton before my class in Geology. On that 

 occasion Charles McKay had brought in and 

 questioned me about a bit of Favosites, a fossil 

 Silurian coral having almost exactly the appearance 

 of honeycomb, which he had picked up in glacial 

 drift. With this as a text, I set forth the growth 

 of the coral, covering at the same time in simple 

 language the geological history of Wisconsin from 

 the Silurian down. I may here add that afterward, 

 under the title already mentioned, my little story 

 appeared in St. Nicholas, from which it was widely 

 copied in both America and England. It was the 

 first in date of all the "nature stories" for children, 

 of which so many have been written in recent years 

 by naturalists — and others. 

 The Among Miss Macdonald's pupils was young Leland 



sequel Stanford Junior, who took sufficient interest in 

 Favosites to repeat its history at home. The matter 

 made a strong impression on his father as an illus- 

 tration of how science can be effectively taught to 

 children. Many years afterw^ard, when I was pres- 

 ident of Stanford University founded in memory 

 of the little lad who had liked "The Story of a 

 Stone," the "Governor," as he was still affection- 

 ately called, spoke to me of the incident. We were 



C 122 3 



