i6 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
Cordial Words. 
St. Louis, Missouri. 
To the Editor: 
One of the delights of my travels is 
to find in some large city or in some 
out of the way nook a sure-thing, really 
alive naturalist who knows how to 
spend his leisure outdoors and who is 
willing to show other people, especially 
the younger generation, how they may 
spend theirs. It seems to me the great 
mission of nature study from kinder- 
garten to the last year of the university 
is to get people outdoors under intelli- 
gent leadership, to teach them to play 
and while they are playing to learn and 
enjoy nature through all the senses. 
Any organization which takes for its 
slogan “Know Nature First” is sure to 
have a substantial membership. Such 
an organization as yours through the 
medium of its publication is furnishing 
most stimulating leadership. 
Sometime I hope to have the rare 
privilege of tramping part of the Con- 
necticut shore under your personal 
guidance. 
W ith many good wishes, 
J. Andrew Drushel. 
To the Heights. 
To the heights more often let us go. 
To feast on view unfurled, 
And to bide, for even the briefest space, 
Above the chaotic world. 
Our souls are lifted for the nonce, 
On to a higher plane : 
And evermore, in storm and stress, 
The uplift we retain. 
— Emma Peirce. 
Our Magazine in the Hospitals. 
An important part of our work, a 
part that probably is seldom realized 
by our readers, is the cheer and outdoor 
joy that we take to the “shut-ins.” In 
the twelve years of our publication we 
have had many interesting experiences 
in this connection. At one time a kind- 
hearted woman paid for a series of sub- 
scriptions to be sent to various hospi- 
tals and sanitariums. It would be com- 
mendable if some one would continue 
along that line of cooperation. W e 
have at present a number of hospitals 
on our regular mailing list, but we be- 
lieve The Guide to Nature should visit 
every hospital and sanitarium in the 
United States. W'e carrv the kind of 
message that the patients appreciate. 
W e often receive expressions of ap- 
proval but perhaps no one has more 
enthusiastically expressed that good 
opinion than Margaret MacLachlan. of 
the Polyclinic Hospital of the United 
States Public Health Service, of the 
New York County Chapter of The 
American Red Cross, in New York 
City. In a recent letter she writes : 
“In going through a lot of old maga- 
zines I found a copy of The Guide to 
Nature for November, 1919. I teach 
in this hospital and if ever there was a 
real find this magazine is it. I have 
read it inside out and back end fore- 
most to the boys in the eye ward, who 
cannot read for themselves, and if you 
have a few more copies on hand, begin- 
ning at December, 1919, one of each, to 
send me I shall be grateful. 
“Now. can you tell me where to begin 
on the line of astronomy? I should like 
to get a primer and try to enlarge the 
drawings on the blackboard. The men 
are all Service Men and are being 
treated at this hospital. The nature 
studies of the tree toad were much ap- 
preciated. I translated the word ‘toad’ 
into Portuguese., French and Spanish 
with the aid of a dictionarv. 
“The Smithsonian Institution at 
Washington, D. C., has sent me some 
bulletins on bird lore and one or two 
others, but the little magazine, well it 
was just the proper find at the right 
time.” 
The forms Mother Nature spreads out for 
you, 
Are as varied as objects in mountain view; 
You maj choose and study whichever you 
will, 
There will always be lacking some know- 
ledge still, 
They are fashioned with such consummate 
skill. 
— Emma Peirce. 
From our birth to our return to dust 
the laws of chemistry are the control- 
ling laws of life, health, disease and 
death, and the ever clearer recognition 
of this relation is the strongest force 
that is raising medicine from the un- 
certain realm of an art to the safer 
sphere of an exact science. — Julius 
Stieglitz in the Introduction of “Crea- 
tive Chemistry.” 
