66 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



priceless results of generations of experience, and heirloom 

 rubbish. The spirit of inquiry impels one to examine the 

 foundations of belief. The childhood of the race accumu- 

 lated much which its manhood is compelled to lay aside, 

 and our mental stock in trade needs going over and revising 

 continually. This is the only way to keep the true from 

 being covered over by the false. 



Every part of this description applies to the need of a 

 spirit of inquiry in nature study. We find that there are 

 many cherished beliefs about nature that people have 

 grown up with and many of them may be on record. They 

 may be recited to us by friends, by teachers, or by books. 

 We can be sure that some of them are founded on the truth, 

 and that others are nonsense; and so far as opportunity 

 permits us, the spirit of inquiry urges us to put them to the 

 test. Under the last topic it was indicated that the open 

 mind comes into a larger and freer contact with nature 

 than instruction can anticipate, but the spirit of inquiry 

 finds part of its mission in looking into the foundation of 

 instruction. Old ideas of nature became crystallized into 

 statements, and these statements have been passed on 

 from one book to another, and they reappear in the in- 

 struction of to-day. Some of these statements stand the 

 test of new observation and others do not. 



The spirit of inquiry, therefore, leads one to take the 

 statements of books and of teachers as things to be tested 

 before they are believed. It distinguishes clearly between 

 beliefs that must be taken on faith and those that need to 

 be accepted only after the evidence is examined. If the 

 teacher states that all clovers fold their leaflets toward 

 evening, and suggests that the observation be made, the 



