SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by ALICE HALL WALTER 



Address all communications relative to the work of this depart- 

 ment to the Editor, at S3 Arlington Avenue, Providence, R. I. 



The Promise of the New Year 



IN the initial number, February i, 1899, Bird-Lore stated its purpose to 

 promote the study and protection of birds. At that time the pubHc was 

 not aware of the value of birds, either from an economic or an educational 

 standpoint. The term ''conservation" had not then been definitely related to 

 natural resources. Farmers, teachers, indeed, comparatively few people, were 

 actively or intelligently concerned in preserving bird-life. Museums contained 

 dead birds, mounted with little reference to their educational value, or 

 hidden away in drawers, unmounted. One has only to compare the crowded 

 exhibits in the closely-packed cases of the Leyden Museimi with the re- 

 markable habitat groups in the American Museum of Natural History, or 

 even with the excellently arranged collections of certain smaller museums, 

 to realize what a transformation museum methods have undergone within 

 recent years. 



Nearer yet to an ideal method are the outdoor aviaries, parks, experiment 

 plots, and national reservations, which are the visible signs of private, munici- 

 pal, state, and federal interest in the protection and propagation of birds. 



It is a long look backward to the time when WilKam Bartram set forth 

 from London in 1773 to search "the Floridas and the western parts of Carolina 

 and Georgia" for botanical wonders of nature. 



Urging his way "through the howling wilds of America," pursued by croc- 

 odiles and innumerable strange creatures, Uttle could he have dreamed that 

 within less than two hundred years the people of America would be endeavor- 

 ing to save to these same wilds a mere fraction of their former superabundant 

 life! 



Year by year, since the reorganization of the Audubon Society, Birx)-Lore 

 has had some step ahead in bird-protection to chronicle, some new enterprise 

 in bird-study to launch. Since 1903, under the department known as "The 

 Audubon Societies," there has been presented an important series of bulletins 

 reflecting both protective and economic reform, beginning with certain of our 

 most persecuted and rapidly-vanishing species, the Passenger Pigeon and 

 Snowy Egret. 



Concerning the former, it is worth noting that in 1856 Thoreau jotted 

 down his surprise at running across so many snares for Pigeons around Concord, 

 expressing the hope that trappers would not become as mercenary as farmers 



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