CHAPTER VII 



WHAT I DO CARE FOR 



" Oh, I don't care for that ! " 



" And neither do I ! " I did not say so to him, 

 but I say it to you. 



I thought (and I still think), that the principal 

 of that normal school spoke somewhat sneeringly. 

 I had made a distinction between the study of 

 nature as the informal, intimate, sympathetic, un- 

 systematic view of living things, and the pursuit 

 of science as the formal, intellectual, professional, 

 systematic, and synthetic treatment of animate 

 objects. But I made no reply to the covert sneer. 

 The conversation dropped with his remark. He 

 seemed inclined to think that I was quibbling 

 over a matter of names, and I felt that if I at- 

 tempted an explanation it would be like showing 

 the east where the west is. 



The trouble was right here. So far as he had 



any views of nature he was scientific. He was a 



systematist. Everything that came to his mill 



always dropped in at the same place, and was 



89 



