JUL 28 19 5 
National Committee of 
Audubon Societies 
ORNITHOLOGY IN THE • SCHOOLS 
By WILSON TOUT 
The solution of the bird protection problem can never be 
reached by courts, laws, or officers. The small boy is one of 
the chief offenders, and those in authority seldom attempt to 
cover or even reach his thoughtless acts of destruction. If all 
boys could be shown the harmful results of killing birds or 
destroying their nests, what an army for bird protection there 
would be within a few years. If the girls were taught the folly 
of pandering to the demands of fashion when it calls for the 
sacrifice of countless innocent victims, the game wardens now 
needed to protect our birds would have to seek some other 
vocation if they would still prosper. The school is the foun¬ 
dation of reform movements in other lines —why not in this? 
In a former paper I gave the why and where ; in this one I 
shall attempt to give the how and when of bird study. 
The first objection offered to a proposal for having bird 
study in the schools is that the course is already crowded and 
no room remains for a new study. The objection would be 
rational if it were proposed to introduce a new study. Birds 
can not be studied from books and very few schools have access 
to mounted specimens. Saturday excursions, observations on 
the road to and from school, and in country schools, even at 
recess and during school hours, will furnish subjects for 
conversation lessons and also much needed material for 
language and composition work. One school I know of 
organized itself into a club for the study of birds. The children 
met at four o’clock twice a week and compared notes for about 
twenty minutes. This did not detract from school work but 
on the other hand increased the interest in the regular studies. 
This paper was read at the second annual meeting of the Nebraska 
Ornithologists’ Union, and is republished by permission of that Society. 
