176 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



and the neighbouring objects. They have really 

 observed. 



The average person does well to see with fifty 

 per cent efficiency. I have talked separately with 

 three or four children concerning the same experi- 

 ence, and their accounts agreed; they must have run 

 above ninety per cent in accurate observation. 



President Charles W. Eliot came out with the 

 following sweeping statement in a recent publica- 

 tion by the United States Bureau of Education, 

 called Certain Defects in American Education and 

 the Remedies for them: 



" It is the men who have learned — probably out 

 of school— to see and hear correctly and to reason 

 cautiously from facts observed, who carry on the 

 great industries of the country and make possible 

 great transportation systems and international 

 commerce." 



Doctor Eliot goes on to say: 



" Since the United States went to war with Ger- 

 many there has been an extraordinary exhibition 

 of the incapacity of the American people, as a 

 whole, to judge evidence, to determine facts, and 

 even to discriminate between facts and fancies. 

 This incapacity appears in the public press; in the 

 prophecies of prominent administrative officials, 

 both state and national; in the exhortations of the 

 numerous commissions which are undertaking to 

 guide American business and philanthropy; and in 

 the almost universal acceptance by the people at 



