128 First Conference 



able bud-studies); the flowers open and the newly 

 awakened insects visit them : it is tJie time of opening 

 — of eggs and of the womb, of the song of birds and 

 of the heart of man. I see in the exhibition a rough, 

 but, to my thinking, very admirable youthful draw- 

 ing of the chick escaping from the ^^'g. 



I mean, in all seriousness, that unless in our studies 

 we can do something to regain the vividness of out- 

 look of simpler times — expressed, for instance, in the 

 story of the return of Proserpina or in the reawaken- 

 ing of the Sleeping Beauty — then we are, in our 

 Nature-study, in great part missing the mark. We 

 are losing what is perhaps most important of all — 

 what the artistic mood calls " a feeling of the spring ". 

 I was interested to see from one of the London 

 schools an infant-class chalk illustration headed " The 

 Story of Persephone ". 



In Snmmer, which is the period of greatest animal 

 activity, there should be some study of the animal 

 industries — of hunting, fishing, and so on; of the 

 making of dwellings and shelters, leading on to an 

 architectural climax in the bee-hive and the termi- 

 tary; and of the many storing industries, from squirrel 

 and beaver to bee and ant, which lead our thoughts 

 on to autumn. Collections of wasp-nests and the like 

 can be readily made in the country; even in town a 

 school ant-hill is readily procurable from dealers if 

 the hard-driven teacher has not time to make one for 

 himself. A few lessons on a real ant-hill will be 

 obviously worth many miles of talk. Even when the 

 school board or the governors think they cannot spend 

 the money on such luxuries as ant-hills, there might 

 be one for each centre, which could be carried from 



