158 The Nature-Study Idea 



scientific formulas, but in teaching nature we 

 may admit the spirit as well as the letter. If I 

 were making a teacher's program for the study 

 of nature, I should want to include a course in 

 English poetry. With pupils, however, one 

 must be careful to have the poem exactly 

 appropriate to the subject and the occasion. 



One may not make a list of poems that are 

 always to be used by teachers of nature-study 

 for specified topics. The choice of the poem 

 should lie with the particular teacher or the 

 pupils. These poems should be used sparingly, 

 and not at all when the teacher himself does not 

 have poetic feeling by means of which to inter- 

 pret them. Better no poems whatever than to 

 have manufactured and idle sentiment. The 

 trouble with much of the sentiment is that it 

 gives us a wrong point of view. 



In our day of science, people seem to be 

 afraid of figures of speech. The scientist for- 

 bids us to personify; and this is well. But this 

 spirit may be carried so far as to forbid meta- 

 phor and to condemn parables. Speech can- 

 not be literally accurate. Even astronomers say 



