The Point of View.

The prime necessity for good nature-study "teaching" is the point of view, what the thing is from your own appreciation of it, and then the purpose in transferring that appreciation to each child. I say, "your own appreciation," because we get, in this world, what we prepare for, and what we give. If you want to develop the individuality and love of the child, first develop and make sure of your own individuality and love, and then give generously to the child. Establish a comradeship with every pupil.

I fancy that some one may object to the reply which the principal made to the German washerwoman, when he tried to explain the purposes of nature study, and that some one may claim that he expected too much, because the woman's son may not have the ability to be a Wordsworth boy. And if you do say that, it is right there that you make a mistake. He loves something exactly as Wordsworth loved. It probably is not "ye cliffs and islands of Winander." But it is something else with an equal love. Your duty is to find out that love. If it is worthy, then develop it. If it is not worthy, then guide it to

something that is. Therein is your mission as a nature-study teacher, to find out, develop, guide, a love for natural objects. Few can write as Wordsworth wrote of his boyhood. But where is the boy that cannot, that does not live it in all the fullness of spirit that Wordsworth lived it as a boy. Few can write good poetry, but every one can and does live it to a greater or lesser extent. Every man, woman, and child is a poet-naturalist. The child's play, the woman's hopes, the man's ambitions, the philosopher's hypotheses are all poetry, though we may call them fancies or the building of air-castles. They are all true poetry, the charm that makes life worth living, the illumination of life by the light that was never on sea or land.

And every one is a naturalist. No one is so senseless as not to appreciate sunshine, flowing water, the ocean, trees, flowers, something. Find out that poetry, that something, then develop it. It is a high calling that comes to you, naturestudy teacher. It is for you to develop your poet-naturalists, and you are responsible for just as many as there are pupils in your school.

"Nature Study trains us to keep our eyes open to the living things about us and to an earnest inquiry into the meaning of what we see."-A. C. BOYDEN.

"It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things by which we are surrounded are deserving of minute and careful attention."-RENNIE.

I wrote a sober, scientific account of all its parts, without a spark of life in it—but I threw it away. I know now that there is something better than the botany of the Horse Chestnut tree, and that is the poetry of it... There is poetry and beauty all around us in every common thing, and we, who have had health and eyes, have not seen it. Let us wake up and look about us and get the most out of life every day that we live! Happiest are they who can still look out upon Nature with the eyes of childhood! . . . The first thing is to open the heart. The next thing is to open the eyes.

JULIA ELLEN ROGERS, in "Among Green Trees."

"As a rule, children observe well; but a false method of teaching especially that which reduces all school work to a study of books, often destroys this natural tendency. When we reflect what an important factor in mental growth the habit of close and accurate observation is, we can but deplore that so much of our school work tends to diminish rather than to increase this power. Nature study if so taught as to awaken interest, rather than fatigue the pupil, can be made an important aid in the development of this power."-Education through Nature Study, JOHN P. MUNSON, Ph. D.

CHAPTER III

WINNING LOVE FOR NATURE STUDY

"Nature study is never a task, but a tonic.

It recreates." DR. C. C. ABBOTT.

There often comes to my mind a paradoxical story heard in my boyhood days, of an Irishman (for the Irishman is proverbially and everywhere a wit), who at a country store was endeavoring to secure a proper-sized pair of cowhide boots.

He maintained that No. 10 was the required size, but the storekeeper insisted that No. 14 would be a better fit. It seemed evident that the merchant was right, for Pat could not draw on the No. 10's. Still, as he tugged at the straps he declared that 10 was the number, and that his inability to get them on was due only to the stiffness of the leather. Suddenly his flushed and perspiring face lit up with a mingling of smiles and inspiration. The problem was solved. Yet there was a shade of disgust apparent because his bright idea had not come sooner, to save him some hard and futile work.

"Shure," he said, "and why didn't I think of it before? All the trouble is I've got to wear thim boots a few days to limber thim up, an' thin they'll go on aisy."

My interest in the story, and hence my vivid recollection, is not due so much to the absurdity of the situation, as to my sympathy with Pat! The remembrance of the amusing phases of the tale are mingled with my attempt to reconcile with boyish logic, the two facts, that, while Pat in the main was wholly wrong, yet, from a certain standpoint, he was more than half right.

The Irishman's logic has a host of sympathizers among those who attempt to do certain things. As the architect's plans precede the building, so in most cases, the object must be completed in spirit, before it is even begun in reality. This is emphatically true in winning love for the study of nature; the germ must exist before the love can be developed. Something can seldom be made out of nothing.

As Wordsworth says of his poet,

"You must love him, ere to you

He will seem worthy of your love."

There must be an inherent love for nature before