Sierra Club Bulletin 



be opened in this space before Sierra Club eyes. That chapter is the 

 organization of the California Nature Study League. This was 

 aimed to test whether, as a part of this internationalizing recreation, 

 there could be transplanted to our America the nature-study-field- 

 excursion, which seemed the best thing evolved in the recreational 

 culture of Nordic (or blonde) Europe. 



This was therefore scrutinized from Scotland to Switzerland, 

 from Norway to Holland. Near Melrose Abbey, whose buttresses in 

 the pale moonlight still "show ebon and ivory," dancing-eyed little 

 girls told of their joys on such nature-study-field-excursions. Scot- 

 tish bairns called them "school treats." One sandy-haired lassie of 

 nine, with an attractively freckled nose, gave testimony that "A picnic 

 is only a picnic — where you wear stiff clothes and, with solemn peo- 

 ple, drink tea under the oaks. On a school treat, however, you go 

 out among the heather and catch butterflies and beetles, and it's so 

 much more fun than a picnic." In the Alps green-hatted boys and 

 velvet-bodiced girls climbed Rigi or the Rotstock for edelweiss or 

 alpenrosen, simultaneously absorbing learning during what the wise 

 Dr. Hetherington reminds us are, educationally, life's most precious 

 years. Under Zuyder Zee windmills were found teachers who were 

 born disciples of Audubon. Therefore, along brick-paved Holland 

 dikes tiny wooden shoes clattered excitingly when an older boy 

 found a bullfinch's nest with young. In Germany the nature-study- 

 field-excursion, sad to relate, was found to be developed, under 

 Hohenzollern guidance, as a part of the military machine. Sturdi- 

 ness of leg muscle, stoutness of back trained to rucksack, quickness 

 of eye in detecting coloration of flying bird, all were turned, like 

 expert knowledge of poisonous gas in mine or in chemical fabrik, to 

 further Mars' interest. But even notes of "wandervogeling" and 

 other German phases of the nature-study-field-excursion were util- 

 ized in introducing, by means of the California Nature Study 

 League, this bit of blonde Europe to Pacific shores. 



One phase only of the league's resulting activities may be de- 

 scribed here. That is the nature-guide movement, which utilized 

 while walking the instinctive interest in bark-beetles, water-ouzels, 

 bears, gentians, dodecatheons, arctic willows, sequoias, for educa- 

 tional purposes, under high-power guidance. That form of play 

 which included the love of hiking, the lure of curving trail, the 

 primordial joy in the music of cascading water or soughing pine, the 



