274 Fifth Conference 



A lover of the meadows and the woods, 

 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 

 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 

 Of eye, and ear, both what they half create 

 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 

 In Nature and the language of the sense, 

 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 

 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 

 Of all my moral being." 1 



Of course we cannot expect very young scholars 

 to understand this, or to rise to this height of serene 

 contemplation. Still less ought we to desire or expect 

 to find them using unreal language and simulating 

 emotion which they do not feel. But I think we can 

 never wholly understand what the humbler exercises 

 in Nature-study can do for the young, unless we also 

 realize what the careful and affectionate observation 

 of Nature can do for the mature man. Is there any 

 of us who does not remember with thankfulness his 

 first introduction to Wordsworth's poems to the 

 hush and the calm, the awakened sensibility for 

 beauty, the purifying and ennobling atmosphere 

 which those poems represent? And it is by keep- 

 ing in view our own spiritual experience in later 

 life that we shall be led to see by what early steps 

 children may be helped to form mental habits such 

 as may ultimately lift up their ideals, and make great 

 things seem greater and mean and trivial things 

 smaller all the rest of their lives. We know well 

 that the moments we have spent in rapt admiration 

 of a fair landscape, or of the " many twinkling smile 

 of ocean", have been some of the best moments of 



1 Lines written above Tintern Abbey. 



