THE HIGHEST AIM OF NATURE STUDY. 123 



Always belongs to me and mine. 

 We are the only royal line. 

 And though I have no title-deed, 

 My tenants pay me loyal heed 

 When our sweet fields I wander by 

 To see what strangers occupy. 



HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 



In our study of nature with the children, in aiming 

 to adapt the children to their environment, we can 

 scarcely emphasize too strongly this most important 

 step in adaptation, the training of our children to ap- 

 preciate and appropriate the higher riches all about 

 them. Not until they appreciate, not only the utility 

 or practical value, but the beauty and symbolism, of 

 their environment, are they fitted or prepared for real 

 adaptation to environment. 



This training to appreciate and appropriate all that 

 we receive or may receive is only partial, one-sided 

 adaptation. Not until we realize that adaptation im- 

 plies something more than appropriation, will complete 

 adaptation be possible. 



Man has lived beyond the time when he centred the 

 universe about this little world. But he still, to a con- 

 siderable extent, regards his environment as a mere ad- 

 junct and servant to his little self. We have adapted 

 ourselves to our physical environment by stripping our 

 land of its forests, our air of its birds, our waters of 

 their fish, by using up in the most reckless manner our 

 natural resources. Nature has been our slave, from 

 whom we could take anything, to whom we owed noth- 

 ing. We have often adapted ourselves to our intel- 



