190 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



my experience, it is safer and cheaper to board at 

 a first-class hotel than in the wilderness upon this 

 manna, bounty of the skies though it be. 



It is the hunt for mushrooms, the introduction 

 through their door into a new and wondrous 

 room of the out-of-doors, that makes mycology 

 worthy and moral. The genuine lover of the 

 out-of-doors, having filled his basket with fungi, 

 always forces his day's gleanings upon the least 

 resisting member of the party before he reaches 

 home, while he himself feeds upon the excitement 

 of the hunt, the happy mental rest, the sunshine 

 of the fields, and the flavor of the woods." 



Consciously or unconsciously to us the woods 

 and fields, the meadows and ravines are calling us 

 to our own. They are inspiring us to seek a 

 higher life. They want us to be like them. 



" We are what suns and winds and waters make us ; 

 The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills 

 Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles." 



And how readily comes the response in a 

 language varied, but always signifying the same 

 thing. As Thoreau has expressed it, " I would 

 be as pure as ye, O woods ! " They are as nature 

 originally makes them or as she later fashions, 

 cuts and trims them. This may be through 



