g aside the pose of
a fairy tale and tell the simple truth.

The love of nature, awakened early, is a great estate with which to
endow a child, but it needs education, that the proprietor of the estate
may know how to manage it, and not--with the manners of a _parvenu_--miss
either the inner spirit or the outward behaviour belonging to the
property. This right manner and spirit of possession is what the
informal "nature study" aims at; it is a point of view. Now the point of
view as to the outside world means a great deal in life. Countrymen do
not love nature as townsmen love it. Their affection is deeper but less
emotional, like old friendships, undemonstrative but everlasting.
Countrymen see without looking, and say very little about it. Townsmen
in the country look long and say what they have seen, but they miss many
things. A farmer stands stolidly among the graces of his frisky lambs
and seems to miss their meaning, but this is because the manners
cultivated in his calling do not allow the expression of feeling. It is
all in his soul somewhere, deeply at home, but impossible to utter. The
townsman looks eagerly, expresses a great deal, expresses it well, but
misses the spirit from want of a background to his picture. One must
know the whole round of the year in the country to catch the spirit of
any season and perceive whence it comes and whither it goes.

On the other hand, the countryman in town thinks that there is no beauty
of the world left for him to see, because the spirit there is a spirit
of the hour and not of the season, and natural beauty has to be caught
in evanescent appearances--a florist's window full of orchids in place of
his woodlands--and his mind is too slow to catch these. This too quick or
too slow habit of seeing belongs to minds as well as to callings; and
when children are learning to look around them at the world outside, it
has to be taken into account. Some will see without looking and be
satisfied slowly to drink in impressions, and they are really glad to
learn to express what they see. Others, the quick, so-called "clever"
children, look, and judge, and comment, and overshoot the mark many
times before they really see. These may learn patience in waiting for
their garden seeds, and quietness from watching birds and beasts, and
deliberation, to a certain extent, from their constant mistakes. To have
the care of plants may teach them a good deal of watchfulness and
patience; it is of