SELECTIONS FROM LITERATURE TO AC

COMPANY NATURE LESSONS.

BY SARAH L. ARNOLD, SUPERVISOR OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION, MINNEAPOLIS.

FORE-WORD.

These selections are added to the good words which have been written in behalf of Nature Study, in the hope that they may give the young teacher a glimpse of the poet-world to which the study opens. Not simply for power to see, does the child observe nature; not simply for facts of knowledge; but that his soul may grow, that he may learn to read the messages everywhere written for him in Nature's book, types of eternal truths. For this power of vision he must go to the poets, as well as the scientist. He must learn to share their sympathies, to enter into the broader fields which imagination opens to him.

Let the teacher who would lead the child into the study of nature dwell with the poets. Read again and again the poems in which they have interpreted nature to us. If once you catch their spirit, your work will grow. It will inspire every lesson-will cause the children to look up-will make the study an element of growth to both teacher and pupil.

So the fields which his eyes discover will open before the child to the Elysian fields which are as truly his-imagination will walk hand in hand with observation, and both work together to help the children to true interpretation and enjoyment of Nature.

"I love the shadowy forests, where the birds
Twitter and chirp at noon from every tree;
I long for blossomed leaves and lowing herds,
The green fields wait for me."

"Oh, the green things growing, the green things growing,
The fresh, sweet smell of the green things growing!
I would like to live, whether I laugh or grieve,
To watch the happy life of the green things growing."
"Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit and each leaf a book."

"I was given a seed to plant. When I loved it most I was

bidden to bury it in the ground. I buried it, not knowing I was sowing."

"Hope is the tune of the spring bird's song,
And the leaves in all their prisons hark.
And blossoms know 'tis the end of dark,
Of the winter so cold and long."

"Flowers are God's undertones of encouragement to the children of earth."

"Oh, pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The times, when in our childish plays
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the Butterfly!

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey; with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake and bush;
But she, God love her! feared to brush
The dust from off its wings."

The clouds are very dark, 'tis true,
But close behind them-lies the blue."

"Art thou weary, tender heart?
Be glad of pain,

In sorrow sweetest things will grow,
As flowers in rain.

God watches, and thou shalt have sun,

When clouds their perfect work have done."

"Forgiveness-'tis the odor that the trampled flower give out to bless the foot that crushes it."

"Time the measure of his hours

By changeful bud and blossom keeps."

"The mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter 'Little Prig;'

Bun replied;

'You are doubtless very big,

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together

To make up a year

And a sphere.

"A violet by a mossy stone, Half hidden from the eye, Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky."

"My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky.

So was it when my life began,

So is it now I am a man,

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The child is father of the man,

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety."

-Wordsworth.

OCTOBER'S BRIGHT BLUE WEATHER.

"O, suns and skies and clouds of June,

And clouds of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather.

When loud the bumble bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And golden-rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
When gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a word of warning;
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;
When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

SEPTEMBER.

"The golden-rod is yellow
The corn is turning brown,
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun,
In dusty pods the milkweed
Her hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow nook,
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,

With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer."

FADED LEAVES.

"The hills are bright with maples yet,

But down the level land

The beech leaves rustle in the wind

As dry and brown as sand.

The clouds in bars of rusty red

Along the hilltops glow,
And in the still sharp air, the frost
Is like a dream of snow.
The berries of the brier-rose
Have lost their rounded pride;
The bitter-sweet, chrysanthemums,
Are drooping, heavy-eyed.

The pigeons in black wavering lines
Are swinging toward the sun;
And all the black and withered fields
Proclaim the summer done.

His store of nuts and acorns now
The squirrel hastes to gain
And sets his house in order for
The winter's dreary reign.

"Tis time to light the evening fire,
To read good books, to sing
The low and lovely songs that breathe
Of the eternal spring."

-H. H.

-Alice Cary.

FROM "THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN." "Along the river's summer walk

The withered tufts of aster nod,
And trembles on its arid stalk
The hoar plume of the golden-rod,