comstock] NATURE-STUDY FOR CHILD AND TEACHER 135 



watching and eternal nagging to keep the pupils quiet and at 

 work? She finds, first of all, companionship with her children; 

 and second, she finds that without planning or going on a far 

 voyage she has found health and strength. 



The old teacher is too likely to become didactic, dogmatic 

 and "bossy" if she does not constantly strive with herself. Why? 

 She has to be thus five days in the week and, therefore, she is 

 likely to be so seven. She knows arithmetic, grammar and 

 geography to their utmost and she is never allowed to forget that 

 she knows them, and finally her interests become limited to what 

 she knows. 



After all, what is the chief sign of growing old? Is it not 

 the feeling that we know all there is to be known ? It is not years 

 which make people old ; it is ruts, and a limitation of interests. 

 When we no longer care about anything except our own interests, 

 we are then old, it matters not whether our years be twenty or 

 eighty. It is rejuvenation for the teacher thus growing old, to 

 stand ignorant as a child in the presence of one of the simplest 

 of nature's miracles — the formation of a crystal, the evolution 

 of a butterfly from the caterpillar, the exquisite adjustment of 

 the silken lines in the spider's orb web. I know how to "make 

 magic" for the teacher who is growing old. Let her go out with 

 the youngest pupil and fall on her knees before the miracle of 

 the blossoming violet and say: "Dear Nature, I know naught 

 of the wonders of these, your smallest creatures. Teach me!" 

 And she will suddenly find herself young. 



