QUEER WAYS OF WARRING. 
63 
Queer Ways of Walking. II. 
BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 
The purpose of nature study, as it is at last beginning to 
be understood, is not to make scientists. Here and there, 
one among many thousands, will be a child who will love 
science for its own sake, and such an one will find a way to 
get forward. There were great scientists long before the 
fields were thought of as the best “child’s garden” in the 
world. The primary object of nature study should be the 
development of the faculties of mind and body ; to encour¬ 
age habits of observation and reflection ; to lead the child 
to see clearly and think rightly. Along with this develop¬ 
ment of faculties which will be of inestimable value in every 
walk of life, will come greatly increased possibilities of ra¬ 
tional enjoyment, and this, too, is no light matter in a work¬ 
aday world. But the help that nature offers in building up 
the body and developing the mind for the duties of life is 
the chief thing. 
Those who would help the child to a knowledge of the 
flying, creeping, running, blossoming objects around him, 
will have little difficulty if they look upon the fields, brooks 
and woods with their inhabitants and the child also, as 
parts of a vast kindergarten, and study the child along with 
the objects in which he is interested. The child is at first 
a generalizer; it is only by observation and reflection that 
he becomes a specialist. He goes forth in the morning and 
feels, rather than sees, that the world is full of life. All 
the vast range of objects is at first vaguely blended and but 
dimly perceived. Then follows a closer inspection, and at¬ 
tention is centered upon the bird in the tree, the bee in the 
blossom, the skipper or water strider on the surface of the 
pool. 
