2 The Life and Writings of 



tries and minds of the people are concentrated upon 

 the single problem of making the unwilling earth yield 

 an abundant store, or else directed to that other task 

 of reclaiming a virgin forest and establishing a center 

 of urban life and activity. Mental and scientific pursuits 

 under these conditions receive little attention and less 

 encouragement; in some unexplained manner it often 

 happens that those who attempt to promote these objects 

 meet with decided opposition. Such opposition is based 

 chiefly upon the idea that matters of any sort, to be of 

 value, must have reference solely to the real present 

 and find expression in money values. Rare indeed is 

 it, in these early communities, to find any adequate 

 conception of the value of the work and time spent 

 in the collection of plants and animals, of bugs and of 

 fishes, of fossils and of clams. What matters it that one 

 should know the life history of a single nocuous insect, 

 or that he have full knowledge of the ways best to 

 protect fishes in maintaining their existence in our 

 streams ? Is not a bug, a bug, and a gar-pike, a gar-pike, 

 for all that? So say they all! And stranger still, let 

 such matters become subject for legislative appropria 

 tions, and those who most directly are concerned stand 

 in armed neutrality or else in aggressive opposition. 

 Such is the common fate of propositions connected with 



