of 



genuineness of this interest in the out-of-doors. It 

 may be a fad just now to adopt abandoned farms, to 

 attend parlor lectures on birds, and to possess a how- 

 to-know library. It is pathetic to see " nature study" 

 taught by schoolma'ams who never did and who never 

 will climb a rail fence ; it is sad, to speak softly, to 

 have the makers of certain animal books preface the 

 stories with a declaration of their absolute truth ; it is 

 passing sad that the unnatural natural history, the 

 impossible out-of-doors, of some of the recent nature 

 books, should have been created. But fibs and failures 

 and impossibilities aside, there still remains the thing 

 itself, the widespread turning to nature, and the 

 deep, vital need to turn. 



The note of sincerity is clear, however, in most of 

 our nature writers ; the faith is real in most of our 

 nature teachers ; and the love, who can doubt the 

 love of the tens of thousands of those whose feet feel 

 the earth nowadays, whose lives share in the exist- 

 ence of some pond or wood or field ? And who can 

 doubt the rest, the health, the sanity, and the satisfac- 

 tion that these get from the companionship of their 

 field or wood or pond ? 



There is no way of accounting for the movement 

 118 



