The Nature Library 



And yet I would not in this connection, when considering 

 the field of natural history, lay too much stress upon the scientific 

 aspects of the question. To the real nature-lover the bird in the 

 bush is worth much more than the bird in the hand, because 

 the nature-lover is not after a specimen: he is after a living fact; 

 he is after a new joy in life. 



It is an important part, but by no means the main part of 

 what ornithology holds for us, to be able to name every bird on 

 sight or call. To love the bird, to appreciate its place in the 

 landscape and in the season, to relate it to your daily life, to 

 divine its character, to know it emotionally in your heart — that is 

 much more. To know the birds as the sportsman knows his 

 game; to experience the same thrill, purged of all thoughts of 

 slaughter; to make their songs music in your life — this is indeed 

 something to be desired. 



The same with botany. I regard its class-room uses as 

 very slight. The educational value of the technical part is almost 

 nil. But the humanizing value of a love of the flowers, the 

 hygienic value of a walk in their haunts, the aesthetic value of the 

 observation of their forms and tints — these are all vital. The 

 scientific value which attaches to your knowledge of the names 

 of their parts or of their families — what is that ? Their habits are 

 interesting; their means of fertilization are interesting; the part 

 insects play in their lives — the honey-yielders, the poUen-yielders, 

 their means of scattering their seeds, and so forth — all are interest- 

 ing. To know their habitats and seasons; to have associations 

 with them when you go fishing; to land your trout in a bed 

 of bee- palm or jewel- weed; to pluck the linnsea in the moss on 

 the Adirondack mountain you are climbing; to gather pond-lilies 

 from a boat with your friend; to pluck the arbutus on the first 

 balmy day of April; to see the scarlet lobelia lighting up a dark 

 nook by the stream as you row by in August; to walk or drive 

 past vast acres of purple loosestrife, looking like a lake or sea of 

 color — this is botany with something back of it, and the only 

 place to learn it is where it grows. The botany that trails the 

 days and the season and the woods and the fields with it — ^that 

 is the kind that has educational value in it. 



I confess 1 have not much sympathy with the laboratory 

 study of nature, except for economic purposes. Nature under 

 the dissecting knife and the microscope yields important secrets 



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