The Wild Flowers And The Teachers 



Guy A. Bailey 



Professor of Biology and Nature-Study, State Normal School, Geneseo, N. Y. 



Where are the wild flowers of yesterday ? What is the attitude 

 of the school on the subject of picking them and bringing them in 

 unsightly bunches, to fade on the teacher's desk? 



Improvement of the land and the clearing up of waste patches 

 have reduced the range of many species of wild flowers. To this 

 we can offer no serious objection. Still there are many areas that 

 for one reason or another will be allowed to produce just such a 

 crop of native plants as conditions justify. These will be the places 

 that a large number of out-door people will have to use in common 

 with each other. They will be the picnic grounds for the children 

 and grown-ups. Over these same areas nature-lovers will tramp 

 for birds, wild flowers, ferns, mosses, insects and all the various 

 forms that draw people from the sheltered life of office, school-room 

 and library. They will be the oases for the pent-ups. As time 

 goes on the number of the visitors will increase while the number of 

 such breathing places will be diminished. Each year sees an 

 increase to an already long list of out-door people. Unless more 

 care is exercised by those who now use these places a large amount 

 of the material that makes them attractive will be destroyed and 

 only the bare places left for succeeding generations. 



There seems to be a sort of sequence in the disappearance of the 

 flora and fauna of those regions over which civilized man roams at 

 will. As far as the flora is concerned there is some variation in the 

 order of disappearance. In places where trailing arbutus grows 

 naturally this species seemed to be the first to go. Its manner of 

 growth and short stems call for the pulling up of the entire plant 

 by those who place immediate pleasure first in their code of ethics. 

 The result is that this delicate spring flower is pushed back and 

 away from the cities and villages to remote hills where it is still 

 being pursued with a perseverance worthy of a better cause. Even 

 now as far as the majority of this generation is concerned it is 

 exterminated. When a flower occurs as sparingly as does this 

 little plant it is time for all to refrain from picking it and allow 

 the plant to regain some of its lost ground. What are the school 

 people doing? If a boy or girl can bring arbutus in from the coun- 

 try how eager the teacher is to wear a piece in her waist and many 

 of the children can also boast of a little sprig of this much perse- 



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