THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
162 
Dearly beloved friends, it is for just 
the thing you are trying to get, and I 
wish you would tell me some way by 
which you can be shown in your blind- 
ness, deafness and dumbness that here 
is the thing you are searching for and 
do not seem to know how to reach. 
But in sharp contrast on the other 
hand blessings on the heads and hearts 
of our chosen band of the select few 
who by their memberships and con- 
tributions have seen that here is the 
hope for coming generations. God 
speed the day when it shall grow into 
a greater university and a hundred per 
cent of usefulness and benefit to all 
humanity. 
At a recent public meeting in the in- 
terests of education held in the Town 
Hall of Greenwich, a prominent philan- 
thropist said to me, “You and your 
work surely deserve the approval of 
everybody because you have shown 
how to get interest and entertainment 
in the simple things of the world 
around us.” 
That kind-hearted man was only 
partly right. We deserve more — a 
check. 
To Live is Greater Than to Get a 
Living. 
The Agassiz Association stands not 
for any fad or hobby but for ideals. It 
believes that it is more important to 
teach youth how to live than to teach 
them how to make a living. In other 
words, we believe that the great thing 
to do in this world is to see and to tell 
in good form what is seen. In that 
belief we have struggled on for forty- 
five years and shall go on in the same 
way for all time. We have been criti- 
cized as living too much in the ideal, for 
dealing more in the interests of a plant 
in the garden than in the cooking of 
that plant. We care more for the boy 
or girl, the man or woman, who raises 
that plant than we care for its price in 
the market. We have steadily and 
stoutly maintained that our schools in- 
cline too much toward the utilitarian. 
We believe it to be an error for any- 
body to say, “Do not put in nature 
study. That is too ideal. Our young 
people must be trained to make a liv- 
ing They must be early introduced to 
the shop or the office.” Strictly speak- 
ing the two things should never be 
compared. A comparison is made not 
to exclude utility but to emphasize 
more strongly the ideal. 
We are therefore delighted when 
President Nicholas Murray Butler of 
Columbia University in his annual re- 
port of December 4, 1920, strongly em- 
phasizes the ideal as vastly superior to 
the utilitarian. This quotation from 
the report is the gist of President But- 
ler’s praiseworthy opinion. We heart- 
ily commend the report in both its edu- 
cational and religious aspects. Every 
school and every church will find or 
should find inspiration. In the matter 
of education, President Butler says: 
“Both school and college have in 
large part taken their minds off the 
true business of education, which is to 
prepare youth to live, and have fixed 
them upon something which is very 
subordinate, namely, how to prepare 
youth to make a living. This is all part 
and parcel of the prevailing tendency 
to measure everything in terms of self- 
interest. Economic explanations of the 
conduct of individuals, of groups and 
of nations — that is, explanations based 
upon desire for gain or love of power — 
are sought rather than explanations 
based upon intellectual or ethical foun- 
dations. But a civilization based upon 
self-interest rather than upon intellec- 
tual and moral principle would swiftly 
lapse into the barbarism out of which 
it has come. An educational system 
based upon self-interest is not worthy 
the support and the sacrifice of a civ- 
ilized people.” 
Personality School and Camp. 
On Cape Cod. with rolling waves on 
both sides and the best of seashore air, 
at Brewster, is located Sea Pines School 
and Camp of Personality. The prop- 
erty includes more than one hundred 
acres of open fields, pine groves, ram- 
bling walks and drives and a long beach 
frontage. It is an ideal location for 
school and camp and both purposes are 
accomplished by their sessions — a first 
term beginning in September, a second 
in April and a third for the camp and 
school beginning at the last of June. 
There is no session of the school in 
midwinter, thus affording an excellent 
opportunity for the pupils to go South 
with their parents or enjoy their 
homes. The motto “personality — 
