The Lay of He Band 
So it is. Certainly if ignorance, a great deal of igno- 
rance, were unwholesome, then nature-study would 
be avery unhealthy course, indeed. For, when the 
most curious of the herbalists and birdlorists (Mr. 
Burroughs, say) has made his last prying peep into 
the private life of a ten-acre woodlot, he will still be 
wholesomely ignorant of the ways of nature. Is the 
horizon just back of the brook that marks the termi- 
nus of our philosopher’s path? Let him leap across, 
walk on, on, out of his woods to the grassy knoll in 
the next pasture, and there look! Lo! far yonder the 
horizon! beyond a vaster forest than he has known, 
behind a range of higher rolling hills, within a shroud 
of wider, deeper mystery. 
There isn’t the slightest danger of walking off 
the earth; nor of unlearning our modicum of whole- 
some ignorance concerning the universe. The nature- 
lover may turn nature-student and have no fear of 
losing nature. The vision will not fade. 
Let him go softly through the May twilight and 
wait at the edge of the swamp. A voice serene and 
pure, a hymn, a prayer, fills all the dusk with peace. 
Let him watch and see the singer, a brown-winged 
wood thrush, with full, spotted breast. Let him be 
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