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genuineness of this interest in the out-of-doors. It 

 may be a fad just now to adopt abandoned farms, to 

 attend parlor lectures on birds, and to possess a how- 

 to-know library. It is pathetic to see " nature study" 

 taught by schoolma'ams who never did and who never 

 will climb a rail fence ; it is sad, to speak softly, to 

 have the makers of certain animal books preface the 

 stories with a declaration of their absolute truth ; it is 

 passing sad that the unnatural natural history, the 

 impossible out-of-doors, of some of the recent nature 

 books, should have been created. But fibs and failures 

 and impossibilities aside, there still remains the thing 

 itself, — the widespread turning to nature, and the 

 deep, vital need to turn. 



The note of sincerity is clear, however, in most of 

 our nature writers ; the faith is real in most of our 

 nature teachers ; and the love, — who can doubt the 

 love of the tens of thousands of those whose feet feel 

 the earth nowadays, whose lives share in the exist- 

 ence of some pond or wood or field ? And who can 

 doubt the rest, the health, the sanity, and the satisfac- 

 tion that these get from the companionship of their 

 field or wood or pond } 



There is no way of accounting for the movement 

 ii8 



