NATURE STUDY IN THE ELEMENTARY 

 SCHOOLS. 



Amid such surroundings as these in which we meet, 

 it seems unnecessary to make a plea for nature study. 

 Every rock and crag, every hill and dell, invite and 

 urge with irresistable power. In such a presence is it 

 not almost presumptuous for me to speak of the men- 

 tal broadening and the moral uplifting which come to 

 the sympathetic, reverent, thinking student of nature 

 as he surveys these mountains and valleys ? Need I, 

 a dweller of the plain, tell how much clearer is the 

 vision, how much sharper the conception of these 

 mountains of New Hampshire, which I get from a few 

 hours personal face-to-face contact with them ? Could 

 any traveller tell me what I have seen ? Can any book 

 bring to me the pictures which these mountains have 

 stamped on my mind ? Will not what we see to-day 

 help us better to understand and appreciate picture 

 and traveller and book, telling of these and other 

 scenes of nature ? How much better will we, you and 

 I, feel with the poet of nature as he voices the thoughts 

 which speak but cannot be expressed ? How much 

 nearer are we drawn to the author of nature, through 

 these his works ? 



But this is nature study, in nature's grandest labor- 



