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Editorial 



WHITE OF SELBOURNE 



The Editor has a leisurely feeling this morning, although no cog 

 has slipped in the routine machinery of her day that turns out a 

 duty for every hour with clock-like precision. The reason for her 

 delectable state of mind is that she has been reading with her 

 senior class in Nature-Study the writings of that first great expon- 

 ent of our cult, Gilbert White of Selbourne, England. He had all 

 the time there was in his days ; and there is no note of hurry in his 

 wonderful letters, so full of what he saw in his garden and during 

 his strolls in the country round about. Time to see, time to think 

 about what he saw, and time to write to his friends about what he 

 saw and thought, what an ideal life! 



Gilbert White was a man who was interested in the world and 

 wished to see it ; but instead of setting out on a journey to see it, 

 he sat down and saw it. Other men of like mind, travelled in far 

 away lands, around about the globe. What did they see ? M< >un- 

 tains, valleys, birds, animals, insects, trees, plants, rocks, fossils 

 and different kinds of men. Gilbert White stayed at home in his 

 own dear English nook, and he also saw hills, valleys, insects, trees, 

 plants, rocks, fossils and different kinds of men; and he saw them 

 far better than most of those who went abroad to see. Not only 

 did he see, but he thought about what he was seeing and tried to 

 place it in its right relation to the rest of the universe. What he 

 saw meant something fundamental to him, and to his friends. 

 Had it not been for his friends we should never have known aught 

 of Gilbert White; he wrote letters to them constantly containing 



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