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_Darwin"s book on earthworms:_ Read in this book how the worms make garden soil.
CHAPTER IV
TO THE TEACHER
If you have at hand "The Fall of the Year," read again the suggestions on page 112 for the chapter on "Things to See this Fall," making use of this chapter as you did of that (1) as the object of a field excursion--or of several excursions until all the things suggested here have been seen; (2) as a test of the pupil"s actual study of nature; for there is scarcely a city child who cannot get far enough into nature (though he get no farther than the city park), and often enough to see most of the things pointed out in this chapter; (3) as suggestions for further study and observation by the pupils--things that they have seen which might be added to these ten here, and written about for composition work in English.
FOR THE PUPIL
Here are ten different things for you to see this winter, and most of them, whether you live in the city or country, you can see, provided you live where the snow falls. But you will have some kind of a winter no matter where you live. Don"t miss it--its storms, its birds, its animals, its coasting, skating, snowshoeing, its invitations to tramp the frozen marshes and deep swamps where you cannot go in the summer, and where, on the snow you will catch many a glimpse of wild life that the rank summer sedges will never reveal. Don"t stop with these ten suggestions; there are a hundred other interesting things to see. And as you see them, write about them.
CHAPTER V
TO THE TEACHER
Let this chapter be read very close to the Christmas recess, when your children"s minds are full of Christmas thoughts. This unconventional turn to the woods, this thought of Christmas among the animals and birds, might easily be the means of awakening many to an understanding of the deeper, spiritual side of nature-study--that we find in Nature only what we take to her; that we get back only what we give. It will be easy for them to take the spirit of Christmas into the woods because they are so full of it; and so it will be easy for them to feel the woods giving it back to them--the very last and best reward of nature-study. No, don"t be afraid that they are incapable of such lessons, of such thoughts and emotions. Some few may be; but no teacher ever yet erred by too much faith in the capacity of her pupils for the higher, deeper things.
FOR THE PUPIL
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These lines of poetry you all know. But who can tell who wrote them? Where did he live and when?
_gum swamp:_ See description of such a swamp on pages 262-263 of the author"s "Wild Life Near Home." This is the tree known as sour gum, more properly tupelo (_Nyssa sylvatica_ or _uniflora_).
_cardinal grosbeak:_ Commonly called "cardinal," or "redbird."
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_Holy Day:_ What was the oldest form of our word "holiday"?
_ilex:_ _Ilex verticillata_, the black alder, or winterberry, one of the holly family. A low swamp bush covered with red berries all winter.
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_Lupton"s Pond:_ A little pond along Cohansey Creek near Bridgeton, N. J.
_Persimmon trees_: found from New Haven, Conn., to Florida.
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_Bob Cratchit"s goose:_ There never was such a goose, as you all know who have read d.i.c.kens"s "Christmas Carol."
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_liquid amber:_ The balsamic juice of the sweet gum tree, sometimes called "bilsted" (_Liquidambar styraciflua_), a large, beautiful swamp tree found from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas.
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_half-human tracks:_ Because the c.o.o.n is a relative of the bears and has a long hind foot that leaves a track much like that of a small baby.
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_tupelo:_ See note on _gum swamp_, page 141.
_sour gums_: same as tupelo.
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_chicken or frost grapes_: _Vitis cordifolia_: the smallest, sourest, best (boy standards) of all our wild grapes. They ripen _after_ the frost and feed the boys and birds when all other such fruits have gone from the woods.
_Smooth winterberry_: is really another ilex, _Ilex laevigata_, a larger bush than _Ilex verticillata_, the black alder or winterberry.
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_Fox sparrows:_ See the frontispiece. The largest, most beautiful of our sparrows. Nests in the Far North. A migrant to New England and the Southern States.
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_The crows were winging over toward their great roost:_ Don"t fail this winter to spend, if not Christmas Day, then one of your Christmas vacation days, in the woods, from morning until the crows go over to their roost. You will never forget that day.
CHAPTER VI
TO THE TEACHER
Read to the pupils Emerson"s poem "The t.i.tmouse," dwelling on the lines,--
"Here was this atom in full breath, Hurling defiance at vast death," etc.
and the part beginning,--
""Tis good will makes intelligence,"
letting the students learn by heart the chickadee"s little song,--
"Live out of doors In the great woods, on prairie floors," etc.
Poem and chapter ought mutually to help each other. Read the chapter slowly, explaining clearly as you go on, making it finally plain that this mere "atom" of life is greater than all the winter death, no matter how "vast."
FOR THE PUPIL