SEVENTEEN] CONCLUSION 



J. Long says, "The only book to read out of is the 

 book of nature herself." Nature, after all, is our 

 great educator; books are only translations of what 

 is written on the leaves of the big book. 



Professor Whitman, so well known as Director 

 of the Marine Biological School, at Woods HoU, 

 says that the laboratory has gone as far as it can 

 in its research into the problems of life; that we 

 must now reach out farther and create *' biological 

 farms." His proposed farm would consist of fields 

 and woods and ponds and gardens and orchards 

 and brooks — where he could investigate what 

 nature has done and is doing at the present mo- 

 ment. There is no reason why every country 

 home in the land should not be a biological farm 

 — a school for the study of life. A country home 

 that does not widen the horizon of thought and 

 power is a failure. Asa Gray used to speak of the 

 trees that filled the Oriskany valley, before his 

 residence in boyhood, as his "professors." The 

 college that he attended was the great amphi- 

 theater, circled with orchard-covered hills, and 

 everywhere man and nature in harmony. 



The best teacher in the country is the one who 

 studies with the child; not one who imparts from a 



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