302 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:5— Sept., 1915 



Professor Mairs, in the March number, that "in nature-study 

 the plant or animalis considered in relation to its natural surround- 

 ings alone; its adaptation by nature to its natural surroundings, 

 without any thought of its relation to civilized man. In agricul- 

 ture the relation of the organism, plant or animal, to modem 

 society is the primary idea. . ." The first fallacy is the mis- 

 taken assumption that nature-study (hyphenated by the American 

 Nature-Study Society and the Nature-Study Review) is con- 

 fined to a consideration of plants and animals ; for it is concerned 

 equally with inanimate nature and its processes, as, snow, evapora- 

 tion, freezing, minerals, and even soils. The second fallacy is 

 the denial that nature-study has any rights to objects of nature 

 as related to us as human beings. In other words, we may study 

 a bulbous plant that grows in the woods properly enough as nature- 

 study; but if we plant a hyacinth as a part of school work and 

 use our observations as a basis for language lessons, we are not 

 doing nature-study. Or again, children's observations of a robin 

 building its nest, feeding its young, and even of the worms fed, 

 are nature-study ; but the moment we ask whether the worms are 

 harmful to our nasturtiums and whether, then, the robin is of 

 some benefit, we cease to be doing nature-study but are in the 

 realm of agriculture, which is a reductio ad absurdum. This may 

 seem to be quibbling, but Professor Mair's construction seems so 

 strained and at variance with the accepted views of men who are 

 leaders alike in the field of agricultural education and of nature- 

 study with L. H. Bailey at the head of the list, that the pronounce- 

 ment should not be allowed to pass without a protest. 



Very truly yours, 



C. H. ROBISON. 



State Normal School, 

 Upper Montclair, N. J. 

 April i8, 1914. 



Several hundred feeding baskets and beautiful rustic bird- 

 houses have been installed by the West Laurel Hill and Laurel 

 Cemeteries, Philadelphia, Pa., with the advice and assistance of 

 The Farm Journal Liberty Bell Bird Club in the hope of attracting 

 some of the migrating birds to stay there all winter, as well as 

 to provide attractive homes for the regular sweet-voiced visitors 

 of summer. 



