EVERY child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, 

 waterbugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, 

 wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, 

 brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, 

 butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine- 

 cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries, and 

 hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these 

 has been deprived of the best part of his education. 



— Luther Burbank. 



WE read and studied out of doors, preferring the 

 sunlit woods to the house. All my early lessons have 

 in them the breath of the woods — the fine, resinous 

 odour of pine needles blended with the perfume of wild 

 grapes. Seated in the gracious shade of a wild tulip 

 tree, I learned to think that everything has a lesson and 

 a suggestion. . . . Indeed, everything that could 

 hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in 

 my education — noisy-throated frogs; katydids and 

 crickets held in my hand until, forgetting their em- 

 barrassment, they trilled their reedy note; little downy 

 chickens and wild flowers; the dogwood blossoms; 

 meadow-violets and budding fruit trees. I felt the 

 bursting cotton-bolls and fingered their soft fiber and 

 fuzzy seeds; I felt the low soughing of the wind through 

 the cornstalks; the silky rustling of the long leaves; and 

 the indignant snort of my pony, as ive caught him in 

 the pasture and put the bit in his mouth — ah me! how 

 well I remember the spicy, clovery smell of his breath! 



— Helen Keller. 



