68 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



The Desire for Truth. — -This topic may seem to overlap 

 the last one, but it has a different application. We have 

 touched upon the prevailing sentimentality that infects 

 nature study, sentimentality that sometimes may be called 

 gush. It always raises a fog over the facts, and they ap- 

 pear unnatural and distorted. Any real desire for truth 

 resents this and insists that the fog be cleared away so 

 that things may be seen as they really are. It is just here 

 that the imagination becomes dangerous. This does not 

 mean that it is to be eliminated, but that it is to be kept 

 within bounds. Imagination may make facts glow or it 

 may conceal them. 



An actual experience illustrates this point. A teacher 

 with a delightful power of story-telling had entertained a 

 class in nature study most successfully, but she had set 

 free her imagination in such a way that fact and fancy 

 were all in a jumble. Only one who knew the facts could 

 pick them out, and the whole description was as seductive 

 as one of Jules Verne's romances. Fortunately, at the 

 close of the exercise, questions were called for, and the 

 proper spirit of nature study came into evidence. A boy, 

 whose restlessness was in sharp contrast with the general 

 breathless attention, began to free his mind, and never 

 was a witness subjected to a more searching and persist- 

 ent cross-examination than was that teacher. That 

 boy wanted to know just what was true and what 

 "made up" in the account, and he did not propose 

 to rest until the truth had been freed from its wrap- 

 pings. This attitude toward truth appears to be gen- 

 eral among boys unless it has been unfortunately sup- 

 pressed. 



