HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 55 



Then, too, what beautiful drawings. I envied the 

 child whose letter I first picked up. So neat and 

 pretty. After my hard work over nearly a thou- 

 sand others, this instalment was indeed refreshing. 

 But when I had thus enjoyed about a half dozen, 

 there began to creep over me a feeling that I had 

 somewhere previously read that last one, and not 

 so long ago, either. Then I studied them with 

 keener interest and with growing amazement. 

 How could so many children have ascertained 

 certain facts with a clearness so uniform, and have 

 described them in expressions so similar ? It was 

 bewildering. Eighty of them, and all cut on the 

 same bias. But that bias was really bright and 

 fresh. I could not gainsay that. 



After I had read about two dozen, my mind re- 

 called a visit to a factory in Waterbury, where I 

 saw a coil of wire fed into a machine and reappear 

 as a stream of glittering pins that were rolled 

 around in a " hopper," and shot out of a spout 

 neatly arranged in rows on paper. Some enthu- 

 siastic teacher had correlated a coil of a " nature- 

 study" story into a school machine, and the 

 hopper had evolved attractive language-pins beau- 

 tifully arranged on eighty papers, and then, alas 

 and alack ! she sent them to me. The thing I 



