Round Table on Camp Nature-study* 



Dallas Lore Sharp 



Do you advise the use of the Notebook? You don't know what 

 you think until you put it down. A notebook helps to be accurate. 

 I am poverty stricken about a story I am writing as I did not take 

 notes when in Georgia. It has held up a book. Writing is thought 

 and feeling and not knowledge. I use notebooks in camp. The 

 notebook habit is a mighty good habit. 

 What is the most essential characteristic of a nature councilor? 



You cannot do it well unless you feel it honestly. It is an 

 instinctive love, a natural love. The real love of out-of-doors 

 includes not only the love of the rose but the snake. One ought 

 to experience the great silences. Take groups out in the dead of 

 night. Take them out in a downpour. Call a butterfly a butter- 

 fly and not a fairy. 



How would you start nature-study in camp? 



The work ought to be done in groups. Segregate according to 

 training or experience. The economic side is appealing to the 

 young boy. RecalHng favorite literature is a good way to get 

 started. Adventure or a camping expedition causes a good many 

 to go. The sport side, as fishing, and the collecting idea, as insects 

 may be a starting point. Throw out a challenge, as — Can you 

 collect the 138 flowers in your trip to Maine as Thoreau did? 

 Search for a rare thing, as an orchid. 



How can one get an interest in nature? 



Peter Bell. — "A primrose by a river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more." 



Peter Bell had been to school to a botanist. This is a serious 

 thing. One has to be poet bom to appreciate nature. Most 

 of you were poet born but died at twenty. The use of the How-to- 

 know book is only the beginning of the interest. This is a round 

 about method. It limits the field of activity. Kingsley says, 

 "He is a good naturahst who knows his own parish thoroughly." 



*This is not an article written by Professor Sharp, but a compilation— made 

 by permission — of notes taken from his answers to questions asked at a Round 

 Table at the Nature-lore School held at Camp Chequess-t. We believe tliat 

 the notes are accurate but Professor Sharp is not rcsponsil)k' for them in the 

 same way as if he had written the article. 



147 



