The Spirit of Nature Study 



By Harry Edward Miller 



By what twist of the mentality a multitude has come to misinterpret, to 

 misunderstand, the spirit of nature study, and all that a fair acquaintance with 

 nature means to humanity, is something almost incomprehensible to those who 

 have ever felt an abiding, a steadfast friendship for the out-of-doors. It is 

 beyond doubt true, a mob of mistaken men are persuaded that the study of 

 nature is solely a fad, an occupation unworthy of the serious life; hence they 

 will have nothing of it; hence their scoffing at those who Hsten devotedly to the 

 voices of nature. No lover of the out-door world need reflect at length before 

 he realizes that it is his critics, not himself, who are poor and deficient; it is 

 those who scorn the ways of nature and the ardor of nature's devotees, the 

 sincere ardor we always mean, who are the little, narrow-minded men with 

 shrimpish souls, so that we wonder by what audacity they walk beneath th6 skies 

 strewn with the mysteries of the starry worlds; we marvel how they can fare 

 forth unashamed and unmindful in nature's dominion with unseeing eyes, with 

 unlistening ears, with unattentive souls. Then, to crown their audacity, such 

 critics may be heard lifting praise to the Almighty when they so boldly mock 

 and ignore His handiwork spread out so richly on every side for their reverent 

 attention. Constantly in the history of humankind, we meet the well established 

 fact that the great of this earth have been lovers of nature's realm; they have 

 found in nature a language that is unfailing and without limit in its variety ; and 

 not to be measured by any mortal in its appeal to the soul. Each one who knows 

 something of such a love, who knows the spirit of nature study, is in harmony 

 with the great of every age ; while those to whom nature ever speaks while they 

 answer not are never truly in sympathy with any of the world leaders, whether 

 that leader be the Nazarene, or Plato, or Praxiteles, or Shakespeare, or Raphael, 

 or Kepler, or Beethoven. 



The hour will come when nature study will be almost as common and 

 deemed nearly as necessary as the study of our language. Then the man with 

 a crippled soul will be the exception, the rare exception ! He will be pitied for 

 his absence of that love for the world about us just as we now pity one bom 

 physically deficient. Sad is physical deficiency; but ah, the sadness of the soul's 

 deficiency ! For only then is the spirit an outlaw toward the Creator of the soul 

 and all that is in the universe ! 



The language of nature is more natural than our own ; it is the one original 

 language ; it is the primeval tongue co-existent with the birth of light at the 

 dawn of the ages; it had its syllables, words, sentences, unknown chapters, 

 uncounted volumes, magnificent libraries before the first man on this sphere was 

 touched by life; it is the vast record from which all other records have been 

 taken ; it is not merely the history of a race or people, but is the history of every 

 people none the less than of the tiniest insect, the frailest flower, the beam of 



761 



