HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 1 89 



able, excusable, harmless, admirable hypocrites, 

 although they don't know it or refuse to acknowl- 

 edge it, or do so only with what Brer Rabbit 

 calls " a spell of the dry grins." 



General Sweeney's constituents nominally seek 

 for a few pounds of fish and game, but in reality 

 they go for the rest and the refreshment of nature. 

 What a delicious lot of hypocrites are all these 

 so called lovers-of-out-doors. They beneficially 

 delude themselves. They are all in the same 

 family, brothers and sisters with the mycologists 

 whom Dallas Lore Sharp thus describes : 



"And the collecting of mushrooms is, after all, 

 their real value. Our stomachs are too much 

 with us. It is well enough to beguile ourselves 

 with large talk of rare flavors, high per cents of 

 proteids, and small butcher's bills ; but it is 

 mostly talk. It gives a practical, business-like 

 complexion to our interest and excursions ; it backs 

 up our accusing consciences at the silly waste 

 of time with a show of thrift and economy; but 

 here mushroom economy ends. There is about as 

 much in it as there is of cheese in the moon. No 

 doubt tons and tons of this vegetable meat go to 

 waste every day in the woods and fields, just as 

 the mycologists say ; nevertheless, according to 



