84 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



have ever known, perhaps not about mice, but 

 about the enthusiastic pleasure of keeping them 

 and caring for them. It takes a boy to know 

 that ! If the big man that writes books really 

 knows that, it is because he has remained a boy ; 

 he may have the man's body, yet he retains the 

 boy's heart. 



One scientist with a grown up body and a boy's 

 heart, Professor Clifton F. Hodge, writes : 



But after all, childhood — active, fresh spontaneous child- 

 hood — and its need of the normal environment for growth 

 and vigor, supplies the imperative demand for a natural and 

 active nature study. Truly 4 ' trailing clouds of glory do we 

 come " ; and when we discover the right way, there shall be 

 no M shades of the prison-house " to " close upon the grow- 

 ing boy ! " In rare cases now we find the charm of childlike- 

 ness, the open interest and rapid growth, extending on 

 through boyhood and to the end of old age. When we learn 

 how to educate normally, this may become the rule rather 

 than the exception. 



The teacher read on in her book, while I had 

 been silently soliloquizing. The schedule was one 

 on mice in the last of two weeks' assignment on 

 rodents. 



I fear that my mind wandered from the reading 

 for I know the children and their interests. Sam 

 let me have a pair of waltzing mice, and had been 

 giving me lessons in feeding them. I asked him 



