Fred L. Charles: An Appreciation 



By C. A. McMurry. 



During the ten years that Fred Charles companioned and 

 labored with us at DeKalb, we knew him in the common relations 

 of life as a man of worthy aims and kindly spirit. We saw him as 

 friend and companion and found him genial and hearty. He 

 was chosen originally as a member of the teaching force of the 

 Normal School because he had already made a reputation as a 

 successful teacher of science and especially in the effort to create 

 interest in nature study. He was distinctly a nature lover of a 

 poetic temperament. He was a good example of the kind of 

 interest and enthusiasm which the genuine observers of out-door 

 life in fields and woods have stood for. His training in college 

 work had gained him a strong drift toward scientific studies in 

 biology and towards modern scientific spirit and method. But 

 he was primarily poetic in temperament and looked upon natural 

 things with a sort of human interest. This kindly devotion to 

 natural studies showed itself in his love of wild animal life; even 

 the snakes received a good share of his kindness and good will. 

 The bears and wolves, the foxes and rabbits, the birds and 

 insects had a kindly friend who enjoyed appreciating and sym- 

 pathizing with them in the life struggle. 



In the early days of this nature study enthusiasm, it was 

 somewhat difficult for him to get into sympathy with applied 

 science, with the strictly utilitarian or useful phases of science 

 or with such topics as useful scientific inventions, sanitation, 

 mechanics, etc. In our discussions along this line, he showed 

 a strong preference for the beauty and variety of wonders in 

 nature rather than for the practical utilities of such things as 

 milk testers, disinfectants, corn-shellers and soil fertilizers. He 

 was, of course, not unmindful of the remarkable utilities of 

 science, in steam engines, machines, in modern medicine, in 

 agriculture and manufacturing, but his own choice was for those 

 out-door phases of nature that appeal directly to the observant 

 and enthusiastic naturalist. From this point of view it seems 

 probable that he was somewhat drawn aside from his natural 

 bent when he turned his attention to those problems of agri- 

 culture and practical farm life which have lately occupied so 

 much attention in connection with courses in rural schools. 



In the Normal class-room he was a stimulating teacher, 

 arousing interest and enthusiasm, displaying illustrative skill in 

 his graphic blackboard sketching, and yet holding to somewhat 



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