202 The Book of Woodcraft 



The Stars 



A settlement worker once said to me: "It's all very 

 well talking of the pleasures of nature study, but what use 

 is it to my little Italians and Polish Jews in the slums of 

 New York? They get no chance to see the face of nature." 

 "If they do not," I repHed, "it is their own fault. They 

 watch the pavements too much for coppers; they are forever 

 looking down. To-night you ask them to look up. If the 

 sky is clear, they will have a noble chance." 



Yes! the stars are the principle study for outdoors at 

 night and above all in winter time; for not only are many of 

 the woodcraft pursuits impossible now, but the nights are 

 long, the sky is clear, and some of the most famous star- 

 groups are visible to us only in winter. 



So far as there is a central point in our heavens, that 

 point is the Pole Star — Polaris. Around this all the stars 



in the sky seem to turn once 

 in twenty-four hours. It is 

 easily discovered by the help 

 of the Pointers, or Dipper, 

 r\ known to every country boy 



*-foti in America. 



"" Most of the star-groups are 



tS^l 



^'^'^ ' known by the names of hu- 



man figures or animals. The modern astronomers laugh 

 at and leave out these figures in the sky; but we shall find 

 it a great help to memory and interest if we revive and use 

 them; but it is well to say now that it is not because the 

 form of the group has such resemblance, but because there 

 is some traditional association of the two. For example; 



