Il8 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



poorly manifested by chasing them over hill and 

 into forest, down the ravine, through the meadow 

 and across the swamp, in killing them, drying 

 them, pressing them, sticking them on paper, 

 poisoning them, and last, but not least, by hurl- 

 ing jaw-breaking polysyllabic Latinized names 

 at them. Better let us know them as living things. 

 The child who cares for pets, loves them better than 

 the taxidermist who kills them, stuffs them, and 

 sells them for an advertisement in a saloon, or in 

 the window of a cheap restaurant. Cultivate in 

 the young folks, then, the nourishing, caring love 

 of living plants. Better one plant grown from 

 seed to maturity, and watched in all its stages, 

 than a hundred mummified in an herbarium. 

 Have you seen the sprouting (no, I don't mean 

 peas and beans, too often with a few tadpoles and 

 a cocoon or two, the all-embracing synonym of 

 nature study), but have you really seen the first 

 steps in the life of the daisies, wild carrot, " butter- 

 and eggs," tick trefoils, acorns, all easily gathered 

 on a " thousand hills," and all easily germinated ? 

 Why is it that we commonly study seeds from 

 the garden in early spring, and then go to the 

 wild flowers of the field in May and June? 

 Would it not have been better to begin with the 



