The Bay of the Band 
they have no place to take us, nothing to show us 
when we arrive, Their real world does not exist. 
But we know that a real, ordinary, yet a marvelous 
world does exist, and right at hand. The present 
great nature movement is an outgoing to discover it, 
—its trees, birds, flowers, its myriad forms. This is 
the meaning of the countless manuals, the “how-to- 
know” books, and the nature study of the public 
schools. And this desire to know Nature is the rea- 
sonable, natural preparation for the deeper insight 
that leads to communion with her, —a desire to be 
traced more directly to Agassiz, and the hosts of 
teachers he inspired, perhaps, than to the poet-essay- 
ists like Emerson and Thoreau and Burroughs. 
Let us learn to see and name first. The inexperi- 
enced, the unknowing, the unthinking, cannot love. 
One must live until tired, and think until baffled, be- 
fore he can know his need of Nature; and then he 
will not know how to approach her unless already 
acquainted. To expect anything more than curiosity 
and animal delight in a child is foolish, and the 
attempt to teach him anything more at first than to 
know the out-of-doors is equally foolish. Poets are 
born, but not until they are old. 
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