NATURE-STUDY. xxi 



cloth. That thing? Is that a Hving animal? It may 

 be, and I don't care; it looks like a whale. I am going 

 to the theatre." 



I care little how the interest is aroused. All that I 

 want is that it shall be aroused in some way, either by 

 the nature-loving teacher, or by the instinctively nature- 

 loving child himself. Sometimes a practical experience 

 may be beneficial. A little girl whom I know is ever on 

 the alert to enlarge her experiences in the natural world 

 that surrounds her. Recently she saw a big fly in the 

 grass. She had never met its like, as it was banded with 

 yellow and black. To investigate it, she picked it up, 

 and then she wished that she had not. But she felt bet- 

 ter, and knew more, after the pain had subsided, and 

 hereafter hornets and Mabel will be on good, if not in- 

 timate terms. "What made him do that ? I didn't want 

 to hurt him, why should he hurt me so? What was it 

 he stuck into my finger ? Do you know what it was, and 

 how he made it hurt so bad?" The teacher was over- 

 whelmed with questions in the anatomy and the physiol- 

 ogy of the hornet, and the little girl had not only her 

 finger, but her active mind full of hornets. I am not 

 suggesting that you should take your class in nature 

 study to the nearest hornet's nest, and to stir it up to 

 teach them the physiological action of formic acid, but 

 that a bit of practical, if at times painful experience, will 

 do no permanent harm, and may do as much good to 

 others as it has done to the little girl, for she is alive to 

 any nature study interest that comes to the suiface, al- 

 though she is now cautious in making acquaintance with 

 previously unknown creatures. I carry within my own 

 mind, within its most retired and private recesses, a vivid 

 recollection of my first interview with a strong and lusty 



