The California Nature Study League 



C. M. Goethe 

 Sacramento, California 



An overseas letter arrived. It was signed "The Wasp Pro- 

 fessor." This nickname was given its writer in a western orphan- 

 age. He had entered that orphanage from the Juvenile Court. 

 In the court chambers the Nature-Study class leader had plead 

 for one more chance for him. The judge, regretfully granting it, 

 said further effort to reclaim the lad was useless, that he belonged 

 to the "sewer of humanity," that "the sooner that such folk 

 rotted, the better." 



The letter proved the Judge had been mistaken. The lad, now 

 grown and an airman in France, had written it. He described 

 the great waves of seemingly resistless volume that continued 

 breaking against the allied lines, in spite of a merciless machine 

 gunfire. The epistle ended with these words : "The situation is 

 desperate. Today we were allowed to fly unusually low over the 

 attackers. So far I have escaped. Will I live to see which of the 

 two ideals involved in this war will conquer? It all seems queer. 

 Here I am, fighting for the right. A few years ago, by the turn 

 of a hand I would have gone to the Reform School. It all came 

 through that Orphanage Nature Study Class, when I had the 

 chance to show that I could lead boys in decent things as well as in 

 petty crime." 



This dramatic letter shows the value of Nature Study in dealing 

 with the plastic minds of children and adolescents. The "Wasp 

 Professor's" life tale, changed sufficiently to hide his identity, is 

 one of several which, accumulating, resulted in the concept of 

 the California Nature Study League. The Orphanage was a 

 laboratory. Years of child study there were broken by several 

 journeys abroad. From all this came the concept of inter- 

 nationalizing recreation. Nordic, or blonde Europe's best contri- 

 bution to the world's recreation culture seemed to be the Nature 

 Study Field Excursion. Its use in Denmark included teaching 

 even the children in Schools for the Blind the music of wild birds 

 despite their inability to see them. 



The California Nature Study League thus came into being. 

 Its purpose was to transplant into California this highly organized 

 Nature Study Field Excursion of Nordic Europe. 



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