94 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



disregard as characteristic of various nations, he 

 says: 



" If we would strengthen our country, we must 

 cultivate a love of it in our own hearts and in the 

 hearts of our children and neighbors ; and this 

 love for civil institutions, for a land, for a flag, if 

 they are worthy and great and have a glorious 

 history, is widened and deepened by a fuller 

 knowledge of them. 



" A certain love of one's native land is instinc- 

 tive, and the value of this instinct should be al- 

 lowed, but it is short of patriotism. When the 

 call is to battle with an invader, this instinct has 

 a high value. It is true that the large majority of 

 those who have died to found and to maintain 

 our civil institutions were not highly instructed in 

 constitutional law ; but they were not ignorant of 

 the doctrines of human rights, and had a deep, 

 though perhaps very general, sense of the value 

 of our civil institutions. If a boy were asked to 

 give his reasons for loving his mother, he would be 

 likely to say, with the sweetest disregard of logic 

 and catalogues, 



" ' Well, I just love her.' And we must not be 

 hard on the young citizen who just loves his 

 country, however uninstructed he may be. 



