THE knowledge of nature that comes easy, that comes through familiarity with her, as through fishing, hunting, nutting, walking, farming—that is the kind that reaches and affects the character and becomes a grown part of us. We absorb this as we absorb the air, and it gets into our blood. Fresh, vital knowledge is one thing; the desiccated fact is another. Do we know the wild flower when we have analyzed it and pressed it, or made a drawing of it? Of course this is one kind of knowledge and is suited to certain minds; but if we cannot supplement it with the other kind, the knowledge that comes through the heart and the emotions, we are poor indeed.

I recently had a letter from the principal of a New England high school putting some questions to me touching these very matters: Do children love nature? How shall we instil this love into them? How and when did I myself acquire my love for her? etc. In reply I said: The child, in my opinion, does not consciously love nature; it is curious about things; about everything; its instincts lead it forth into the fields and woods; it browses around; it gathers flowers; they are pretty; it stores up impressions. Boys go forth into nature more as savages; they are predaceous, seeking whom they may devour; they gather roots, nuts, wild fruit, berries, eggs, etc. At least this was my case. I hunted, I fished, I browsed, I wandered with a vague longing in the woods, I trapped, I went cooning at night, I made ponds in the little streams, I boiled sap in the maple-woods in spring, I went to sleep under the trees in summer, I caught birds on their nests, I watched for the little frogs in the marshes, etc. One keen pleasure which I remember was to take off my shoes and stockings when the roads got dry in late April or early May, and run up and down the road until I was tired, usually in the warm twilight. I was not conscious of any love for nature, as such, till my mind was brought in contact with literature. Then I discovered that I, too, loved nature, and had a whole world of impressions stored up in my subconscious self upon which to draw. I found I knew about the birds, the animals, the seasons, the trees, the flowers, and that these things have become almost a grown part of me. I have been drawing upon the reservoir of youthful impressions ever since.

If nature is to be a resource in a man's life, one's relation to her must not be too exact and formal, but more that of a lover and friend. I should not try directly to teach young people to love nature so much as I should aim to bring nature and them together, and let an understanding and intimacy spring up between them.—The Outlook.