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._