The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



A time will come, let us hope, when the 

 schools will be less artificial and removed 

 from real life, and will no longer systemati- 

 cally ignore religion, the family, the country 

 and the vocation of the pupils. When that 

 time comes, the schoolmasters will turn 

 again to the classic Fabre handbooks, or at 

 all events to books modelled upon his, in 

 order to teach the little peasant boys to love 

 their fields, their beasts, their agricultural 

 and pastoral labours; to teach them also 

 sometimes to lift their heads from the fur- 

 rows in order to look up at the returning 

 stars. 



Begun in 1862 by the publication of a 

 book on agricultural chemistry, Fabre's work 

 of popularisation was continued until the 

 appearance in 1879 of his first volume of 

 the Souvenirs. It forms as it were a preface 

 to the great entomological masterpiece. 

 Thanks to the deserved success of the series, 

 rather than to his wretched emoluments as 

 professor, he achieved the security and inde- 

 pendence necessary to the accomplishment 

 of his mission. His class-books were the 

 ransom that set him free. They enabled 

 him to leave the town and escape into the 

 fields. They even enabled him to realise 

 his dream of a solitary corner of the earth 

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