JOHN BURROUGHS ties of human observation, as Humboldt and Goethe were. Not long since, in a high school in one of our large cities, I saw a class of boys and girls studying nature after this cold-blooded analytical fashion. They were fingering and dissecting some of the lower sea forms, and appeared to find it uninteresting business, as I am sure I should have done. If there was a country boy among them, I am sure the knowledge of nature he had gathered on the farm was worth a hundred fold, for human purposes or the larger purposes of science, all this biological chaff. Of the books upon nature study that are now issuing from the press to meet this fancied want in the schools, very few of them, according to my thinking, are worth the paper they are printed upon. They are dead, dead, and neither excite curiosity nor stimulate observation. I know a New York teacher who usually manages to have in her school-room some live creature from the fields or woods-a flying squirrel, a chipmunk, a young possum or turtle, or even a chicken. This the boys come to love and to understand. This is the kind of biology that interests them. The purely educational value of nature-study is in its power to add to our capacity of appreciation-our love and enjoyment of all open-air objects. In this way it adds to the resources of life, and arms a man against the ennui and vacuity that doth so easily beset us. 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 instill 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 had become almost a grown part of me. I have been drawing upon the reservoir of youthful impressions ever since. Anything like accurate or scientific knowledge of nature which I may possess is of later date; but my boyhood on the farm seems to have given me the feeling and to have put me in right relation with these things. Of course writing about these subjects also deepens one's love for them. My boy is a passionate lover of woods and waters, but mainly as a sportsman; now he is in college, and I see by his letters that he too has discovered that he has another love for nature, and has a fund of impressions to draw upon when he writes his themes. I have never tried to instill into him a love for the birds or woods, but only to give him free range among them, and to let him grow up in their atmosphere. 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. Winter Woods Home of the blue jay and the chickadee, Rests on the rocks and ferns and frozen moss; And even the brooklet gurgles on with glee. What new intruder stalks through his domain; Who can a chatterer or a recluse be? Who calls these forest vistas lone or dead, When more remains than with the Summer fled? Ο By Nora Archibald Smith NE of the most interesting things in the development of the kindergarten since Froebel's day is the capability it has shown of taking up its residence in foreign countries and adapting itself to foreign conditions. It has begun to prove itself a citizen of the world, in the best sense of the term, and nowhere can it more proudly claim the title than in Japan, the land of "my lord Baby." There are several successful kindergartens in Japan, the most familiar to Americans, perhaps, being the Glory Kindergarten and Training-School in Kobe, conducted by Miss Annie Howes. Another one, however, whose work is of the greatest interest, is the Peeresses' Kindergarten in Tokyo, which is under the special patronage of the Einpress, and is located in a part of the imperial gardens. One of the teachers in this unique educational institution is Miss Mine Morishima, a graduate of the California Kindergarten TrainingSchool, San Francisco; and the illustra tions of this article have been sent by her from time to time in delightful reports of her work. The building for the Peeresses' Kindergarten was erected in strict accordance with plans drawn up by the teachers, and artists were engaged to decorate it and to paint special pictures for the various rooms, such as were considered to be of peculiar æsthetic and educational value. A beautiful garden blooming with flowers and shaded by fine trees surrounds the building, and among other attractions there is an arbor large enough to hold all the children, shaded by an immense wistaria vine. Here the games are played in fine weather; and the picture first painted by the enthusiastic kindergartner, of the ring of gayly dressed children singing under the purple wistaria-blooms, is one that memory loves to recall. Imagine, you who love children, a small human butterfly, with a sleek dark head, clad in a scarlet kimono flowered with white, the loose sleeves waving from the slender brown arms; or picture a flock of birds in long gowns and sashes of yellow and blue and violet and crimson fluttering about the circle in the dappled shade of the vine-leaves. No doubt even Japanese A CORNER OF THE PLAY-ROOM children, who are synonyms for happiness and docility, are naughty sometimes, but one can scarcely credit it in looking at the pictures of these round-cheeked, brighteyed little dumplings, as they cluster among their flowers. The children attending the Peeresses' Kindergarten are all of noble birth; there is one baby Princess, many little ones from families connected with royalty, and there are numerous sons and daughters of titled generals and statesmen. It would be interesting to compare the manners, morals, and capabilities of these infant grandees with children of the poorer classes, but no information on this point is forthcoming as yet. Among the specimens of handiwork executed by these small Japanese fingers and sent to this country are three occupation-books illustrating the Four Seasons. The first is the work of children from three to four years old, and shows different colored "New Year's Balls" in circular parquetry, a paper-folding book, a fan of beadwork, a spring flower of colored tablets, a beadwork gourd for holding water, a shawl of folded paper; it closes, as do the other two, with a page of pressed flowers and leaves delicately gummed into place. The second book represents a class of children of four to five years, and begins with a charming design of cherry-blossoms cut from pale pink paper. Next comes a parti-colored butterfly in beadwork, and then a combination page of cutting and folding, representing a mulberry leaf and several co coons, made after silkworms had been raised in the kindergarten. There is also a fan (sewing) of unusual shape, a striking though simple page of pine-needles and plum-blossoms (sewing and pricking), a Japanese flag in drawing, and a parquetry top, which, it seems, is a toy used only at New Year's time. There is another page which is the crowning glory of the book-a flock of wild geese as they sweep across the sky in autumn, folded in soft gray paper in graduated sizes and pasted diagonally across the sheet. The work in the third book was done by children from five to six years, and still further illustrates the originality and poetic feeling of both children and kindergartner. The opening page shows pink cherry-blossoms floating on running water, and is a combination of parquetry and sewing; next comes a group of dark blue fleur-de-lis, set among their tall, spear-like leaves (cutting); and the third page bears two goldfish (cutting) waving their tails in a highly realistic manner, while they gasp, open-mouthed, in a tangle of seaweed (drawing). Then follows a page of pressed autumn leaves, a chrysanthemum branch in beadwork, a bunch of winterberries (drawing), the ever-present fans worked out in various materials, two charming paper-foldings representing a crab and a locust, and, last, what is really a triumph of weaving, or perhaps what the scoffer might call a triumph of imagination, a snow-covered mountain with the moon shining down upon it. Of course we may question how much of the originality of this work is due to the child and how much to the teacher, but the kindergartners state that all colorcombinations are made by the little ones themselves; that many of the paper-folding forms, for instance, are invented and named by the pupils, and that the suggestions as to appropriate subjects for the seasons came from the ranks in all cases. The children seem to be especially successful in paper-folding, which is not surprising when we think of their delicate, flower-like hands; and accompanying the books are a number of inventions in lifeforms-a dragon-fly, a crane, a crab, and a frog, which are striking likenesses of these animals so often represented in Japanese art. There is a sturdy little horse among them, too, quite capable of standing up on his own four legs, that well deserves introduction into American schools. Part of the nature-work each term in the Peeresses' Kindergarten is the raising of silkworms; and the children see the whole process, bringing mulberry-leaves to feed the hungry caterpillars, watching them spin their cocoons, seeing the moths come forth, preserving their eggs on squares of paper, winding the silk, and, finally, each one spinning a tiny skein to take home. There is now a large Froebel Society in Tokyo, organized on Froebel's birthday, 1896, and enrolling one hundred members at last accounts. A general meeting of the society is held once in two months, when some topic previously given out is discussed the topics so far being connected with the practical details of the work, such as the best ways of dealing with gifts, occupations, games, and stories, for instance. Prominent teachers are also occasionally engaged to give talks on special subjects, and a psychology class has lately been organized as a branch of the main society. To us in America it would seem that the kindergarten movement in Tokyo was developing most successfully, but the Japanese teachers evidently feel that many drawbacks to progress still exist among them. One of the kindergartners writes in a late letter: "We do not get on so well because we Japanese women are not used to any kind of the work outside until this day but now we are forced to do all kind of the work in and out;" and she concludes with a pathetic sigh, which moves us to compassion here across the water: "I am sorry to say that very few of us take the active part to push through and take the others' hands to go on." |