148 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [17:4— April, 1921 



Why do college graduates fail as nature councilors? 



Athletic councilors can be found by the thousands but not 

 nature councilors. The job of the college graduate is to get the 

 campers to know five ferns, five insects, five flowers, etc. The 

 college graduate thinks that you have to put nature in alcohol 

 and stain it, and look at it through a microscope. Biology is now 

 on the scoring of intestinal parasites of a flea. Professor Charles 

 Eliot Norton recently told a literary club about a student who 

 could not come any more to a class in aesthetics. He did not have 

 time on account of his research work. 



What is your opinion of stories not true to nature? 



There is nothing in ancient or modem mythology as wonderful 

 as the truth. There is no ring tailed screamer or invention of man 

 as wonderful as that invented by nature. I have lived in the 

 woods all my life and have never seen any extraordinary animal. 

 I have seen three legged muskrats but they were caught in a trap. 



But the children do not believe these things? 



The real trouble is that the authors in the preface swear that 

 they are true. These animals are humans with coats of feathers 

 and furs. These things never happen out-of-doors and they never 

 will. There is no reason for not reading them. They all start 

 the same — with an extraordinary animal. If the book takes the 

 children ouf-of-doors, well and good. This is a day of movies and 

 they can understand such things. 



What ought we to give the children to read? 



At the back of all great literature, art, and music, is the out-of- 

 doors. Nature gives it virtue. One is not educated unless 

 they have read : Story of the Dog of Flanders, Tanglewood Tales, 

 the Round Table, Wonder Book, Aesops' Fables, few of Hans 

 Christian Anderson's, Mother Goose, Alice in Wonderland, and 

 Water Babies. I would give them books by Burrough'^ Gilbert 

 White, and Jeffries. 



