I30 THE NA TURE-STUD V RE VIE W [3 : j-may, ,907 



Compare the plant and animal foods of primitive people, or of 

 our own early history, with the variety and the abundance of 

 today. How large a part of the world now contributes to the 

 table of a working man compared with that which furnished his 

 table in King Arthur's time. Looking forward we desire and we 

 anticipate a very marked improvement in the food-supply of 

 nations. Those men who through the study of nature discover 

 or make new foods, who increase the yield or quality of others, 

 or who discover better methods of food preservation, are public 

 benefactors of no mean order. Ought not every child to re- 

 capitulate in part, through his own personal effort, the main 

 steps taken by the race in the development of its food industries? 

 Such a recapitulation is needed in order to make of the child a 

 man of broader sympathies and clearer foresight. The child 

 may become in time a member of a legislative body, or he may 

 use his mental powers as a moulder of public opinion. In 

 either case he will render his country better and more intelligent 

 service if he has come to recognize the value and dignity of that 

 labor which directly furnishes a nation's food-supply and which 

 is, in the most fundamental manner, one of its surest and greatest 

 sources of wealth. 



Group B will bear similar study. Compare the comforts of 

 the primitive cave or hut with those offered by a single room 

 today. Try to enumerate the plants that have given woods for 

 the roof, walls, floor and furniture; fibers for woven fabrics and 

 papers, gums and oils for paints and varnishes; and dye stuffs 

 to contribute to the color scheme. The animal kingdom has 

 given of its furs, hair, leather, ivory, feathers, silk, lacquer, and 

 red and purple. The book in your hand, in the pigment and oils 

 of its letters, the fibre in its paper, thread and silk, the paste and 

 glue used in its binding and the morocco of its covers is an 

 expression of nature's bounty and man's conquest. 



The geographical extent of the biosphere involved and the 

 millions of human hearts and hands connected with the col- 

 lecting, curing, shaping and assembling of the material is really 

 beyond comprehension. It opens to the mind an immense 

 vista of human industry and commerce. Was not our Whitman 

 intoxicated with this view in his "Salut au Monde?" How 

 many of us living in the colder lands of the north (sheltered 

 from the storm, lighted and warmed, fed and made comfortable 



