PREFACE 



The field which this book essays to enter has ever 

 spread out before me like an enchanted country. The 

 possibilities and resources of life, dissolving in changes 

 forever fresh and new, the infinite variety of mechanism, 

 device, and story, the display of beauty on every side that 

 baffles expression by pen or brush, have always seemed to 

 me the natural matrix for the highest development of the 

 child's mind and soul. We are beginning to use fruitfully 

 in our education the legends and myths of the past, but the 

 fundamental conceptions of these lie in the life and nature 

 about us. All this is the work of the Infinite Enchanter 

 of the Universe, and forms a realm of real magic, of which 

 human myth and fairy tale are after all but the passing 

 shadow. This was the world of keenest interests, delights, 

 and sufferings of my boyhood, the common ground out of 

 which my interests in special problems of science have 

 grown, the world to which I instinctively turn from the 

 fatigue and technicality of special work for rejuvenation 

 and refreshment and find that its delights do not grow old. 



The more I study the problem, the more it seems to me 

 that this side of nature is the sheet anchor of elementary 

 education, all the more necessary as modern life tends to 

 drift away from nature into artificialities of every sort. 

 Recent developments of the sciences have completely daz- 

 zled our modern education with their bewildering array 



