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NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11 :S— Nov., 1915 



"Amateur Journalism." Scores of youths all over the country 

 were publishing tiny magazines of their own. In one of these 

 amateur journals, edited I believe at a farm house some four or 

 five miles from his own home, this school boy published an account 

 of his researches. Some scientific journal — ^if I remember aright 

 one of repute in the world of letters — in some way got hold of his 

 boyish effort and considered it worthy of reproduction as a scientific 

 study. 



When leaving home to enter McGill University as a student he 

 presented to the public school in his native village of Ormstown a 

 collection of entomological specimens, several hundreds in number, 

 carefully mounted and named, which for years stimulated scientific 

 study among the young people of the locality. Two of the summer 

 vacations during his undergraduate course were spent in the employ 

 of the Dominion Geological Survey — though his own special course 

 in the University was in Psychology. While thus engaged in 

 geological research he carried with him daily his botanical collec- 

 tor's case, dissecting and determining at night any new specimen 

 seen during the day. In this way he detected two errors in Gray's 

 Botanical Guide, discovering on the upper reaches of the Ottawa 

 and on the Lievre two plants whose habitat Gray had given as 

 "New Jersey and southward." In the autumn the Director of the 

 Geological Survey asked him to write a sketch of his summer's 

 work in botany. This was read, in his absence, before the Ottawa 

 Field Naturalists' Society, and, though still an undergraduate, he 

 was made an honorary life-member of the Society. 



Did nature-study help to retain any of these three boys upon the 

 farm? All authorities on the Country Life Problem write in 

 urging nature-study as one of the means whereby rural mindedness 

 may be fostered. What were its effects in this specific instance? 

 True, all of these three boys left the farm. All received a Univer- 

 sity education. Yet in each case to leave the well-loved farm 

 caused a decided wrench. Duty rather than inclination lead them 

 elsewhere. To them nature-study was a real though ineffectual 

 hand binding them to the farm. 



Kingston, Ont. 



