1*72 Canadian Record of Science. 



away from dry text-books to ramble in the fields and woods. 

 The child whose worldly horizon is limited by a dirty street 

 or dull backyard rejoices to see grass and flowers and trees, 

 and drinks in inspiration from them. Sitting one Sunday 

 afternoon at the open window looking out on the college 

 grounds, I saw a working-man walk past with a little girl 

 at his side. Coming opposite the bit of old-fashioned, 

 poorly kej)t garden, which thirty years ago I had managed 

 to carve out of the unwholesome swamp which then lay in 

 front of our college terrace, the child stopped to look at it, 

 and said, "Papa, is that the Garden of Eden?" The poor 

 little thing, who had perhaps never seen anything of a 

 garden but the outside of its fence, had heard that once 

 there had been a garden of the Lord — a free and happy abode 

 of man. Some years ago I knew of a boy dying of con- 

 sumption in a poor home, to whom a kind lady sent a bunch 

 of rich purple grapes. He gazed at them, fondled them, 

 could scarcely be persuaded to taste them, and said, " How 

 pretty ! I have heard of grapes, but I never had any before." 

 Coming home some time ago from a little excursion in 

 which I had secured some deer's antlers, I happened to 

 drive up from the station at the early morning hour when 

 our streets are swarming with factory hands going to their 

 work, and I noticed how everyone turned and stopped to 

 look at my prize, and how the faces of many lighted up as 

 they saw in imagination a view of wild woods and bounding 

 deer, which perhaps remained with them as a pleasant 

 thought through the day. How is it that our boasted 

 civilization shuts out so many from contact with nature ? 

 The God who long ago led Israel out of bondage provided 

 that every Hebrew family should have for its very own 

 some strip or patch of the green sward of the promised 

 land, and the Great Teacher who came long after, drew His 

 favorite texts from the trees, the flowers, the grass, the birds 

 and the beasts. It is not the will of God that we should 

 imprison ourselves between four dingy walls in the midst of 

 His beautiful world. 



But it may be said that the rustic who dwells in field 

 and forest has as little of the real companionship of nature 



