THe Mature-Student 
mental, certainly, yet not ignorant, nor merely vapid. 
He does not always wander along the lake by night. 
He is a nature-student, as well as a nature-lover, and 
he does a great deal more than hoot at the owls. 
This, though, is as near as he comes to anything 
scientific, and so worth while, according to the pro- 
fessor. 
II 
And it is as near as he ought to come to reality 
and facts — according to the philosopher. 
“We want only the facts of nature,” says the sci- 
entist. “ Nothing in nature is worth while,” says the 
philosopher, “but mood, background, atmosphere.” 
“Nor can I recollect that my mind,” says one of 
our philosophers, ‘‘in these walks, was much called 
away from contemplation by the petty curiosities of 
the herbalist or birdlorist, for I am not one zealously 
addicted to scrutinizing into the minuter secrets of 
nature. It never seemed to me that a flower was 
made sweeter by knowing the construction of its 
ovaries. . . . The wood thrush and the veery sing as 
melodiously to the uninformed as to the subtly curi- 
ous. Indeed, I sometimes think a little ignorance is 
wholesome in our communion with nature.” 
67 
