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

PAGE 1

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.

PAGE 3

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.

PAGE 4

_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.

PAGE 5

In what nursery book do you find the original account of _the
House that Jack Built_?

PAGE 6

_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.