44 ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



their stewardship devolves ? In seeking answers to these questions we ap- 

 ply a searching test to our standards of civilization. 



It is at such times that we turn hopefully to the youth in our schools and 

 are encouraged to plead for larger opportunities for their enlightenment 

 as to their natural heritage. We believe that the setting of our school 

 building and its surroundings should bid smiling defiance to all that may be 

 harsh and forbidding in the environment. Each school should have its ample 

 playgrounds screened with native trees and shrubs. There should be grass 

 plats dotted with wayside flowers. There should be school gardens where 

 vegetables and flowers can be grown and small plats devoted to grains and 

 grasses and other plants of commercial importance to the end that the chil- 

 dren may visualize the varied wealth of our soil. 



We believe that generous provision should be made without delay for en- 

 riching the work in nature study in our schools. For every building there 

 should be a special director of nature study to encourage and assist the 

 teachers in their nature study work, to lead in field excursions, to have 

 charge of equipment, to be curator of specimens, etc. Equipment for this 

 work should be varied and abundant. There should be a plant house for 

 every school where the children's active participation in propagation by 

 seed and bulb and cutting would be under way all the year round and where 

 the life histories of plants would be revealed. There should be aquaria and 

 equipment for keeping alive insects and other forms of animal life includ- 

 ing domesticated animals. 



We believe that the teachers that come from our training schools should 

 all have had generous courses in natural science based very largely upon 

 field trips and they should gather inspiration for themselves and for their 

 pupils from field and forest and from the nightly panorama of the stars. 



Finally, in order that the possession of our great natural assets with 

 their innate possibility for exalting the ideals of our citizenship may be 

 brought impressively to the minds of each pupil and teacher, each super-, 

 visor and administrator in our system of schools, and thus to the attention 

 of the great public as well, we the undersigned respectfully petition that 

 your body set apart at least two days in the school year to be dedicated 

 to pilgrimages out-of-doors. One of these may well be a festival at the 

 height of Autumn coloration, another a fete to mark the high tide of 

 Spring. At such times these pilgrimages made in holiday mood but with 

 serious intent to spots of treasured beauty, whether of park or of boule- 

 vard or of countryside, would produce a lasting impression for good, equal- 

 ly in the minds of those who participate and of those who view the spec- 

 tacle. We do not presume to dictate to your Honorable Body, nor, through 

 you, to the staff of teachers of our schools, the details of such nature festi- 

 vals and excursions. We plead only for the permanent establishment of 

 such events upon the school calendar as will show that a great city gives 

 formal and impressive recognition to the value of a love for natural beauty 

 in refining and exalting its citizenship. 



Jessie L. Smith 

 Everett L. Millard 

 Jens Jensen 



