HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 33 



something that is. Therein is your mission as a 

 nature-study teacher, to find out, develop, guide, 

 a love for natural objects. Few can write as 

 Wordsworth wrote of his boyhood. But where is 

 the boy that cannot, that does not live it in all 

 the fullness of spirit that Wordsworth lived it as 

 a boy. Few can write good poetry, but every one 

 can and does live it to a greater or lesser extent. 

 Every man, woman, and child is a poet-naturalist. 

 The child's play, the woman's hopes, the man's 

 ambitions, the philosopher's hypotheses are all 

 poetry, though we may call them fancies or the 

 building of air-castles. They are all true poetry, 

 the charm that makes life worth living, the illu- 

 mination of life by the light that was never on 

 sea or land. 



And every one is a naturalist. No one is so 

 senseless as not to appreciate sunshine, flowing 

 water, the ocean, trees, flowers, something. Find 

 out that poetry, that something, then develop it. 

 It is a high calling that comes to you, nature- 

 study teacher. It is for you to develop your 

 poet-naturalists, and you are responsible for just 

 as many as there are pupils in your school. 

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