CHAPTER I
TO THE TEACHER
Let me say again that the best thing any nature book can do for its readers is to take them out of doors; and that the best thing any nature-study teacher can do for them is to take them out of doors. Think of going to school to a teacher so simple, wholesome, vigorous, original, and rich in the qualities of the soul that she (how naturally we say “she”!)—that she comes to her classroom by way of the Public Garden, carrying a bird-glass in her hand! or across the fields with a rare orchid in her hand, and the freshness and sweetness of the June morning in her face and spirit! Why, I should like to be a boy again just to have such a teacher. Instead of bird-songs it is too often school gossip, instead of orchids it is clothes, instead of the open fields it is the round of the schoolroom that most teachers are absorbed in. Most teachers can add and spell much better than they can read, because they do not know the literary values and suggestions of words. Nothing would so help the run of teachers as the background, the observation and feeling, that would come from an intimate knowledge of the out-of-doors in the vicinity of their schoolrooms.
FOR THE PUPIL
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Learn first of all the joy of walking. It is enough at first to say “I am going to take a woods walk,” with nothing smaller in mind to do or hear or see. Such tramping itself is one of the very best ways of meeting the wild folk, and getting acquainted with nature. Go to a variety of places—the seashore, the water-front, the upland pasture, the deep swamps, even if you take a car-ride to reach them. Then select the place nearest at hand to frequent and watch closely.
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There are many good books on the use of the camera for nature-study. Among them read: “Nature and the Camera” by Dugmore; “Home Life of Wild Birds,” by Herrick.
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The clover blossom and the bumblebee: Read the intensely interesting book of Darwin’s on the cross-fertilization of flowers. You will also find readable accounts in “Nature’s Garden,” by Mrs. Blanchan.
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In what nursery book do you find the original account of the House that Jack Built?
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Coccinella septempunctata: The ladybirds, or ladybugs, are named according to the number of their spots: septempunctata means seven-spotted. Another is called novemnotata, nine-spotted.
Sixty species of birds: Make your own list. Study your woods, your neighborhood, minutely day and night in order to find them all.