of fe 



esting as it may be, which he obtains in a dissecting- 

 room. But he sees no such difference between live 

 and dead nature, nature in the fields and in the lab- 

 oratory. Nature is all a biological problem to him, 

 not a quick thing, a shape, a million shapes, in- 

 formed with spirit, a voice of gladness, a mild and 

 healing sympathy, a companionable soul. 



" But there you go ! " he exclaims, "talking poetry 

 again. Why don't you deal with facts? What do 

 you mean by nature-study, love for the out-of-doors, 

 anyway ! " 



I do not mean a sixteen weeks' course in zoology, 

 or botany, or in Wordsworth. I mean, rather, a gentle 

 life course in getting acquainted with the toads and 

 stars that sing together, for most of us, just within 

 and above our own dooryards. It is a long life course 

 in the deep and beautiful things of living nature, 

 the nature we know so well as a corpse. It is of 

 necessity a somewhat unsystematized, incidental, 

 vacation-time course, the more 's the pity. The 

 results do not often come as scientific discoveries. 

 They are personal, rather ; more after the manner 

 of revelations, data that the professors have little 

 faith in. For the scientist cannot put an April dawn 



60 



