The Nature Library 
And yet I would not in this connection, when considering 
the field of natural history, lay too much stress upon the scientific 
aspects of the question. To the real nature-lover the bird in the 
bush is worth much more than the bird in the hand, because 
the nature-lover is not after a specimen: he is after a living fact; 
he is after a new joy in life. 
It is an important part, but by no means the main part of 
what ornithology holds for us, to be able to name every bird on 
sight or call. To love the bird, to appreciate its place in the 
landscape and in the season, to relate it to your daily life, to 
divine its character, to know it emotionally in your heart—that is 
much more. To know the birds as the sportsman knows his 
game; to experience the same thrill, purged of all thoughts of 
slaughter; to make their songs music in your life—this is indeed 
something to be desired. 
The same with botany. I regard its class-room uses as 
very slight. The educational value of the technical part is almost 
nil. But the humanizing value of a love of the flowers, the 
hygienic value of a walk in their haunts, the esthetic value of the 
observation of their forms and tints—these are all vital. The 
scientific value which attaches to your knowledge of the names 
of their parts or of their families—what is that? Their habits are 
interesting; their means of fertilization are interesting; the part 
insects play in their lives—the honey-yielders, the pollen-yielders, 
their means of scattering their seeds, and so forth—all are interest- 
ing. To know their habitats and seasons; to have associations 
with them when you go fishing; to land your trout in a bed 
of bee-palm or jewel-weed; to pluck the linnza in the moss on 
the Adirondack mountain you are climbing; to gather pond-lilies 
from a boat with your friend; to pluck the arbutus on the first 
balmy day of April; to see the scarlet lobelia lighting up a dark 
nook by the stream as you row by in August; to walk or drive 
past vast acres of purple loosestrife, looking like a lake or sea of 
color—this is botany with something back of it, and the only 
place to learn it is where it grows. The botany that trails the 
days and the season and the woods and the fields with it—that 
is the kind that has educational value in it. 
I confess I have not much sympathy with the laboratory 
study of nature, except for economic purposes. Nature under 
the dissecting knife and the microscope yields important secrets 
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