192 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [7:7— Oct., I'.Mi 



the path by which man has climbed and keen his senses in the out- 

 of-doors. But this process should lead on, in the individual as it 

 has in the race, to high thinking and fine morality. 



The world owes much to these fruitful friendships with 

 nature. They have been a never failing source of inspiration to 

 prophet, poet and philosopher. The Lake country of England, 

 our own Concord Val 1 ey are incarnate in classic literature be- 

 cause they have so shaped the characters of the men who lived 

 within them that their writings exhale in common the essence of 

 the region. Literature and art are children of one parent, Nature. 

 Freedom dwells in the hills. Religion has drawn its best parables 

 from field, flower and sheep fold. The great leaders of the world 

 have spent at least their most impressionable years close to nature. 

 Sturdy character, in the individual as in the race, is the gift of the 

 mighty forest, the measureless p 1 ains, the silent yet voiceful sky. 



NOTES AND NEWS 



The editor of the Review is in receipt of a letter from U. S. 

 Senator C. S. Page, together with copy of a bill introduced at the 

 last session of Congress. This is entitled "A bill to co-operate 

 with the States in encouraging instruction in agriculture, the 

 trades, and industries and home economics in secondary schools ; 

 in maintaining instruction in these vocational subjects in State 

 Normal Schools; in maintaining extension departments in State 

 Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts ; and to appropriate 

 money and regulate its expenditure." The bill carries with it some 

 generous appropriations for the purposes indicated in the title, 

 and yet no more than is eminently reasonable. Two or three 

 paragraphs from Senator Page's letter will state the reasons for 

 the bill cogently : 



The High School, the Academy and the College are taking 

 excellent care of those boys who are financially able to avail 

 themselves 'of their advantages, but it requires only a superficial 

 examination to show that the average boy, on arriving at the 

 age when he must begin, because of lack of means, to be a bread- 

 winner for the family, is neglected by the State and in far too 

 many cases, following the lines of least resistance, drifts into a 

 cheap manhood. 



That Germany is now outrunning us in the race for com- 

 mercial supremacy is universally conceded. In my judgment, 

 this is due in a large measure to the fact that when the German 

 boy reaches the age of 12, 13, or 14, his characteristics, his physi- 

 cal equipment, the bent of his mind — his idiosyncracies, so to 



