154 The Nature-Study Idea 



Off he flies, and we sing as he goes : 

 Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 

 Spink, spank, spink; 



When you can pipe that merry old strain, 

 Robert of Lincoln, come back again. 

 Chee, chee, chee.* 



This was the exercise that the children were 

 having as I visited the school on a June morn- 

 ing. It was the new old song by which Bryant 

 is remembered of the country boy and girl. 

 The children had seen and studied the bobolink. 

 They had heard the liquid rattle of his song. 

 They had seen the nest in the grass. They had 

 watched for the Quaker wife. They had seen 

 the purple-flecked eggs. They knew that 

 Robert of Lincoln would leave them. The 

 poem touched their hearts. 



With enthusiasm I related the experience to 

 my friend, the teacher of biology in a college. 

 He doubted the value of such work. He saw 

 only danger in it. Such teaching tends to 

 looseness of ideas. It makes the mind dis- 

 cursive. It does not fix and fasten the atten- 



* From Complete Works of William Cullen Bryant. 

 Published by D. Appleton & C*. 



