174 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



under severe, self-imposed discipline, and under 

 this all their faculties are at their best. Fortunate 

 is the child whose discipline is determined by its 

 own inspiration. Interest makes play of the hard- 

 est work. 



We sat for more than two hours upon a log by a 

 beaver pond. When we had at last satisfied our- 

 selves that muskrats — the little brothers of the 

 beaver — were living in an abandoned beaver house, 

 we started on and then questions and comments 

 came thick and fast. 



Sometimes we would count all the flowers that 

 grew in a circle the diameter of which corresponded 

 to the height of the shortest child in the party. 

 Sometimes we counted all the trees in a given 

 square. 



Every normal child is as avaricious for informa- 

 tion as a miser is for gold. This childish desire to 

 know, to learn, will assure mental development if 

 information be given in a way that appeals. Chil- 

 dren can learn but little from cold, unrelated, 

 segregated facts; from academic system and memo- 

 rized rules. Hence, before the young are assigned 

 to learn the definite cut-and-dried facts their elders 

 deem essential, they need the development that 

 roused interest gives. 



We try to use to the utmost the interest of the 

 child. Interest a child and he thinks. While a child 

 is thinking he is learning. One interest invariably 

 leads to a larger and then to other interests. 



