266 ^ NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Emerson : 

 "Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 

 Close by my side." (referring her doubtless to its 

 "phoebe" song which is ventriloquistic in its effect). 



Let us take a few illustrations for interpretation from the 

 nature poems customarily used in the readers. The poem begin- 

 ning "There's a little brown thrush sitting up in a tree" probably 

 refers to the brown thrasher, one of our finest singers. The 

 children rhould be showa his picture (and if possible the singing 

 bird — an easy matter for cotmtry schools and not very difficult in 

 cities), and should be taught many things about him. This 

 should be done with other bird poems also. How in the world can 

 a person really enjoy Bryant's Robert of Lincoln who has not 

 seen and heard this hilarious minstrel with his Quaker wife? 

 The bobolink is not rare. Find out from some local botanist in 

 October where fringed gentians can be found (if Bryant's poem is 

 there for you to teach). Secure only a very few to bring to the 

 schoolroom to see; or by far better, take them out to see them in 

 full bloom (but not to pluck). When Stevenson speaks of stars 

 to the child mind in his Garden of Verses, 



"The Dog and the Plough and the Hunter and all, 

 And the star of the sailor and Mars." 

 let us remember that these are all in our winter evening sky 

 (excepting Mars occasionally) and therefore can be made more 

 than mere words. Gilder's poem beginning "What does he plant 

 who plants a tree?" or any other tree poem, should be the starting 

 point for a desire to learn to know as many trees as one can. 

 The reading of Tennyson's Brook or Lanier's Song of- the 

 Chattachooche ought to drive teacher and pupils almost to 

 truancy in springtime or autumn. 



Here then in the readers, nature is calling to children and 

 teacher. Shall we refuse to hear or let them hear? Comenius 

 summed the whole thing up three senturies ago: 



"Do we not dwell in the garden of Eden, as well as our 

 predecessors? Why should we not, instead of these dead books, 

 open to the children the living book of nature? Why not open 

 their understanding to the things themselves, so that from them, 

 as from living springs, many streamlets may flow?" 



