vi INTRODUCTION 



But judging from past experience, we are sure of this: First, that he 

 who simply tells the awkward truth of what he sees, is building better than 

 he knows ; while he who tries to make it fit some plan' of his own is like an 

 ignorant savage who tries to restore the effacements in a priceless ancient 

 manuscript. 



Second, that whosoever, great or small, takes up this work, piling up 

 little scraps of truth, no matter how minute, how seemingly trifling, it 

 may be only the shape of a mouse's claw, a queer quirk in a grass blade, 

 an unusual hole in a leaf, or the track of a chippy sparrow in the mud, 

 but so long as he makes his record true, and puts it where it can be 

 found when wanted, he is piling up building material for the next great 

 architect. 



What the building will be or when and whence the builder will come, 

 no man can tell. But this we know that when he does come, the edifice 

 will be wonderful, tremendous, glorious. It will be a newer, better, far 

 more competent shelter from misery for all mankind, than any we have yet 

 achieved, and worth Yes, ten thousand times more than worth all the labor 

 that it cost. 



This is the ideal as well as the practical end, and would be worth the 

 following if the road there lay thronigh bogs beset with thorns and over grim 

 ascents on sharpest flints. How much more so, since it is, as we know, an 

 alluring pathway of pleasantness and peace. 



But however much we may need to set forth in order our reasons for 

 Nature-study, this fact is sure: The world-mind darkly groping has long 

 been trending that way. We are to-day on the crest of a great popular 

 wave of interest in this pursuit. The feeling is no fad, no mere passing 

 whim. Nature, close at hand, was the first study of mankind and after a 

 period of neglect, our race is now returning to it. When Audubon published 

 his "Birds of America," such interests were the amusement of but a few 

 scholarly gentlemen who were not taken very seriously by their friends. 

 But to-day what a change! At least a majority of our young people are 

 devoted to such pursuits, and in nearly all our schools there are special 

 courses to foster the growing interest in Natural History. 



The vast number of popular books on Nature-study is probably more the 

 effect than the cause of this, and the prominence given to Nature-work in 

 standard curricula, is good evidence of the value attached to it by those best 

 fitted to direct the mind of youth. 



There is no longer any question as to the desirability of a nature course ; 

 the educators differ only as to method. One party advocates a synoptic 

 view of creation, another prefers to direct attention primarily to the familiar 



