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they have no place to take us, nothing to show us 

 when we arrive. Their real world does not exist. 



But we know that a real, ordinary, yet a marvelous 

 world does exist, and right at hand. The present 

 great nature movement is an outgoing to discover it, 

 its trees, birds, flowers, its myriad forms. This is 

 the meaning of the countless manuals, the " how-to- 

 know" books, and the nature study of the public 

 schools. And this desire to know Nature is the rea- 

 sonable, natural preparation for the deeper insight 

 that leads to communion with her, a desire to be 

 traced more directly to Agassiz, and the hosts of 

 teachers he inspired, perhaps, than to the poet-essay- 

 ists like Emerson and Thoreau and Burroughs. 



Let us learn to see and name first. The inexperi- 

 enced, the unknowing, the unthinking, cannot love. 

 One must live until tired, and think until baffled, be- 

 fore he can know his need of Nature ; and then he 

 will not know how to approach her unless already 

 acquainted. To expect anything more than curiosity 

 and animal delight in a child is foolish, and the 

 attempt to teach him anything more at first than to 

 know the out-of-doors is equally foolish. Poets are 

 born, but not until they are old. 



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