ground out in the same style. A peck took the same course as a carload.

If you say that nature study is merely the study of nature (and that is natural science whether for the university or the kindergarten), and that all this talk about a distinction in the terms nature study and elementary science is bosh and you do not care for that, then I say too: "And neither do I."

You may call your systematizing and your generalizing all the way from your Ph.D. down to the little fellow whom you are helping to put on his rubber shoes, you may call it nature study or what you please. You may demonstrate to the one that the centralizing tendency in the nebulæ is the same that draws the apple to the ground. You may draw as many diagrams and make as many x, y, z's, as you please. You may classify and arrange and evolutionize to your heart's content. You may even dilute the same method and apply it to the little fellow if you want to, and as you pull on the second overshoe, you may tell him that he has two feet and the Tom-turkey gobbling outside the window has the same number, and the chicadee the same, and then you can inform him, if you are determined

to do it, that they are all in the one class of bipeds. You may generalize still further, since the pussy cat is purring to say good-bye, as the boy's father drives up with a prancing horse, that cat and horse are both quadrupeds, and that the elephant is likewise a quadruped. The next day you may put down the whole list on the blackboard, and talk till you are exhausted, and the children, too. And your only reward will be exhaustion!

"But I don't care for that," with these little folk. I want you to let the little fellow get acquainted with that particular Tom-turkey, not some other one, and that chicadee, that cat, that horse, without reference to any other biped or quadruped in the world.

I would give more for the boy's ability to see that one cat, and for his power to develop his originality in his own way, and for his skill in saying what he wants to say about the cat, than to have him tell you of all the kangaroos and lemurs and platypusses that ever ornamented the finest chromo-chart that ever an enterprising agent sold to your school board.

But for that child, have something in natureviewing that will let him find himself (not be

machine made, with others like pins on a paper), that will bring out his love for living things, increase his ability to admire, to see and to enjoy, and to tell you in his own way, about the objects that interest him, not such things as you provide uniformly according to some schedule. For this I plead and for this I do most emphatically care. You may call it nature study, elementary science, nature love, observation lessons, as you please. But I plead with you not to monopolize all the names into your dilute science, and leave out what I call nature study. No, I do not call it quite that. If I were asked to suggest a more expressive title for what I commonly express by the term nature study, and for what I most desire, I should call it nature sympathy and appreciation.

CHAPTER VIII

LOVE OF NATURE AND THE LOVE OF MOTHER

Nature study is not one of the utilitarian studies. It must not be expected to do something it should not do. It may coalesce with other departments of an education, and should do so, but it is not a stepping stone to them; it stands alone. Language-study, drawing, and even mathematics, may be benefited by companionship with it, but they should never be allowed to use nature study as a tool for their own purposes.

In its effect on character building, nature study is closely akin to patriotism, as I have already said in a previous chapter, and to the life of the individual.

The sentiments are so closely allied that they may be said to be companions; and what exPresident Harrison writes in the introduction to "This Country of Ours," may well be remembered for the excellence of his proposed methods toward character building.

After citing examples of love, indifference and

disregard as characteristic of various nations, he

says:

"If we would strengthen our country, we must cultivate a love of it in our own hearts and in the hearts of our children and neighbors; and this love for civil institutions, for a land, for a flag, if they are worthy and great and have a glorious history, is widened and deepened by a fuller knowledge of them.

"A certain love of one's native land is instinctive, and the value of this instinct should be allowed, but it is short of patriotism. When the call is to battle with an invader, this instinct has a high value. It is true that the large majority of those who have died to found and to maintain our civil institutions were not highly instructed in constitutional law; but they were not ignorant of the doctrines of human rights, and had a deep, though perhaps very general, sense of the value of our civil institutions. If a boy were asked to give his reasons for loving his mother, he would be likely to say, with the sweetest disregard of logic and catalogues,

"Well, I just love her.' And we must not be hard on the young citizen who just loves his country, however uninstructed he may be.