THE DEEPER MEANING OF NATURE STUDY 



This generation is rich, above all others, in its possession 

 of nature-knowledge. Until the last hundred years or so a 

 few people, perhaps, were familiar with the habits of some 

 of the plants and animals, but for the most part living things 

 were thought of as mere entities of the forest, field, and gar- 

 den. Familiar things were disregarded, while unfamiliar 

 plants and animals were looked upon as curiosities of creation, 

 existing for no good purpose; or, as obnoxious excrescences 

 upon the otherwise peaceful face of the earth. There are 

 still many people who share this old-time thought that the 

 sub-human life of the world is not worthy of consideration 

 unless it serves some obviously human end. 



Thanks to our accumulated nature-knowledge, we now 

 must and gladly do take another view of the lowly inhabitants 

 of the earth. We now know that each and every living crea- 

 ture has a life story, and we have become profoundly aware 

 that, after all, these life stories, when they are told, are not 

 so different from our own. There is, indeed, a web of life, 

 and we and all other growing things that are born, live, and die, 

 are weaving a part of it. Some of the patterns of the web are 

 small, and some are large. The fabric of life now sweeps up 

 to high places, and now sinks to low; but the fibres of the 

 mesh pass through all, and bind all in one compelling whole. 



To some people this view is disconcerting. They are not 

 able to see the kinship of plants with animals, or of animals 

 with mankind. They may admit that there is a web of life, 

 but to them there are three such webs, one for each of three 

 great kingdoms of plants, animals, and mankind. But increas- 

 ing nature-knowledge, while it may deepen the mysteries of 

 life, does assuredly bind more closely the seemingly inde- 

 pendent divisions of the living world. 



The Community of Human and Animal Life 



With the new nature-knowledge has come a new pleasure, 

 an enriched feeling in observing plants and in associating 



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