HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 65 



goody boy that became a millionaire and played 

 golf and drove an automobile is not effective be- 

 cause it is not true to life, and the child soon de- 

 tects the sham. But the flower is ever beautiful, 

 the bird is ever joyous, and nature is always true. 

 More than stories with a moral do I value nature 

 for morality. 



" Nor hev a feelin' if it doesn't smack, 

 O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back ; 

 (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink 

 Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink.)" 



Would you have the child pure ? Let him as- 

 sociate with purity. Says Thoreau : 



" Exquisitely beautiful and unlike anything we 

 have is the first water-lily just expanded in some 

 shallow lagoon where the water is leaving it, per- 

 fectly fresh and pure before the insects have dis- 

 covered it. How admirable is its purity. ... It 

 is the emblem of purity and its scent suggests it." 



Would you have the child beautiful — real beauty 

 permeating every fiber ? Says Burroughs : 



" Nature does nothing merely for beauty ; 

 beauty follows as the inevitable result. . . . In- 

 deed, when I go to the woods or fields, or ascend 

 to the hilltop, I do not seem to be gazing upon 

 beauty at all, but to be breathing it like air. . . . 

 5 



