NATURE STUDY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 13

NATURE STUDY.

'A PURSUIT FOE GIRLS. Then Sal-ire <-a!d, ' Ihrs child I to Drtsclf will taUc ; She shall bo mino and I will nukr A lady of my mm. — Wordsworth. "Get a fad," says a visa- woman, "«'t .^wtll ksep you out of a lot of mischief." Almost any fad is a lorco (hat makes for happinsss, but of all within reach of every one., high and lo\v, rich and poor, ths sage and the little simple child, the fad — if it be one — of "Nature Study (writ's a lady contributor to tk« Sydney Morning Herald) is th» most stimulating, and the most fertile in pessibilitiss. It is very quaint a»d wonderful in these utilitarian day* to see how a, 'common little w*?d, a. "wee,- modest, erimson-tijjped flowsr,' a mere daisy, could irapirs adoration in a great hearted gentleman liko Chaucer; and even : c*t him out of his bed before day- " break to see it uncloso "under the open- 111 1 ing eye-lids of tho morn," and pay it his | tender' matin worship. His description is liko baby-talk, and as sweet .- Kneeling olwav, till it unclosed w-s, .Uponjhe enialle, soXte, swtcto grass. It is not perhaps possible to reanimato this feeling in truss unimaginative days, but it is only to the superficial .thinker, or nop-thinker, that a little , flower seems ;eas miraculous than ( ifc ' used to bo. Even if science appears. to have robbod us somewhat, to have ■taken something of the "splendour from tha grass and glory from the flower," it has not lessened one jot of the ethical and moral significance- of the- miracle of tho' Creation, and the lessons there written for cur learning. Far otherwise. If seienca has liftad tha corner of tha vei] • that hidis" the mysteries of "the 'Mighty mother, it has only been to 'convince th? awe-stricken searcher tnar he is — as even tho great Newton confessss himself 00 bs — >a child picking up pebble* on tho illimitable shore* of the fathomless and boundless ocean oi truth . Yet, so impossible is it to get away-, from the prosaic atmosphere of the age, : ;that I am constiained to look for a /practical advantage, some sort of "spotcash" benefit, in, recommending "Nature Stury*' to our girls. I am sadly conscions, that, it is .not sufficient to say ' \ f that it is worthy in itself, unless I can ' . say also that there is some advantage ! in it. Well, there is. In* the first place, it is healthy. It would knocks a good deal of pseudorefinsmenl. out of girls. ' It would bo death to high heels, to the 'isosceies-toe-triangles that masquer- ' adc as boots and shoes, and above all, . death 'and destruction to ninety per " '" cent, of the strait waistcoat corsets in : the market. ■It is an excellent elementary introduction to science and scientific modes of ] thought. It is training and education of the most 'importasnt merital faculty, alert ' v observation. 1 It A'ould strengthen tho power of independent thought. \lt would, cultivate, the imagination. Imagination may be an old-fashioned [ possession at present, yet what really great or good thing, was ever achieved •without it? But .1 am beginning to be almost ashamed of myself for trying to prove its usefulness to practical tstes-moutons. Hrst and foremost, before its usefulness, I 'insist that it is fun, and healthy fun. Perhaps it is very unorthodox to take •Urn vitw that science nesd not bs wholly a solemn, serious, hard grind. But that '■ it is unwise, indeed, utterly stupid, in .' working^ with <- young , 'people -to begin' ifith dissection and dry technical detai' ' iand description, most enlightened ] •cien^e teachers are now thoroughly ' „ '«^tiified. .A .training in purely darcrip- ' tivo .botany, a collection- of even a very primitive herbanium, or of sea-shells, dv j butterflies, or beetles, would have a far . truer educative influence for children . than the parrot knowledge of even the '. best textbook of elementary schnoe. Jor once tHey have their interest rationally aroused, the commonest wayside 'weed b-scomes a complex and wonderful ■ ■tructare, and will become still more marvellous when it is ftudied with the •microscope. T can even forgive the holiday-makers ■with all their vandal instincts, who pluck their armfuls of wild flowers, and tjire of them, or drop them half-faded before their pleasure day is over. Of corirse, I would rather they didn't tear them np by the roots, but a nature lover can 'be 60rry and forgive, and hopo that evon this .contact with the "great sweet ■ inoth-sr" may dimly stir her children's love ; may hint faintly at ths great truth that it is not in the mussum, ths cabinet, and the study, that the love of na- . tare, and the best lessons of nature and her handmaid science, can be learned, but in ths wide fields and wildernesses, in her cloistered woods, and the inmost jrtcessis oi ths everlasting hills. If supplemented by a wife selection of literature, .natnra-study wiL l spread out into the bypaths oi geography, of his tory, and of art. And, though it is not every on© -who would be competent , to act_ as a guide here, it wil) open a new world in literature, and give an added meaning to tho old. I r?peat that our hobby would cultivate habits of- observation, the beginning and the middle, arid three-quarters | of the end, of science. Scientific in- j tuition, the gift of scientific second sight, That dipo into the future, far as human eje can. ire, Sees ihe v^ion. bl tho world and all the wonder .that mil be, is given only to half.-doz3n happy souls in a century. And the .part of the great army 'of earnsst Beekers, and collectors, and obssrvers, must bs to gather far ajid wide, here a little, 4Ao there a. little, tho thousand thousand grains of knowledge that the' rflastcrbuilder will pile into some everlasting pyramid of scientific law. , I "would * deprecate as much as any one teeing our girls making a cult of Nature- Study. It is liko people clubbing, together to understand Browning. But as you bring yoar bookish . store 3 of learning to the test of a new author, so you should bring your outdoor spirit and culture, what you have learned firsthand from nature, as a touchstone of all literature and all life.