THE United States Department of Agriculture issued in July, 1896, a circular suggesting that a "Bird Day" be added to the school calendar. In this circular J. Sterling Morton, Secretary of Agriculture, says:

"The cause of bird protection is one that appeals to the best side of our natures. Let us yield to the appeal. Let us have a Bird Day—a day set apart from all the other days of the year to tell the children about the birds. But we must not stop here. We should strive continually to develop and intensify the sentiment of bird protection, not alone for the sake of preserving the birds, but also for the sake of replacing as far as possible the barbaric impulses inherent in child nature by the nobler impulses and aspirations that should characterize advanced civilization."

Prof. C. A. Babcock, superintendent of schools, Oil City, Pa., who has acted upon the suggestion in his schools, says:

"The preservation of the birds is not merely a matter of sentiment, or of education in that high and fine feeling, kindness to all living things. It has an utilitarian side of vast extent, as broad as our boundless fields and our orchards' sweep. The birds are necessary to us. Only by their means can the insects which injure, and if not checked, destroy vegetation, be kept within bounds....

"What is most needed is the knowledge of the birds themselves, their modes of life, their curious ways, and their relation to the scheme of things. To know a bird is to love him. Birds are beautiful and interesting objects of study and make appeals to children that are responded to with delight."