alive and make it grow is kept; what is not needed is given out into the air. Without its leaves, a plant could not live.

Author not known

Someone may think that this is nature study, and that it has nothing to do with Oral English. On the contrary we cannot talk or read or write without clear ideas. We cannot have clear ideas without careful observation. The mind must be able to form clear and definite images. We can do this only when we have given careful attention.

We must read the book of nature before we can read a book of words, or even use words properly in talking. True work for expression must begin with impression. The impression precedes and determines the character of the expression. The impression must be held while it expresses itself.

We must not only see pictures in our minds or hear sounds; we must see and hear only one thing at a time, and we must also give attention to what we see. We must enjoy everything.

Many people are strangers in a strange place, though they are not aware of it. They do not know the beautiful things that live and move around them. The study of leaves, trees, flowers, birds and insects is as necessary as arithmetic; you must become acquainted with all living things. Go whenever you can to the woods and fields; observe closely leaves and flowers. Whenever you read about anything that you have not seen or do not know, look it up, not merely in books, but where it lives. You will always discover something that cannot be put into books. Your heart will grow warmer, and you will be able to enjoy every beautiful thing, not only in the world around you but also in the world of books as well, for stories and books are only records of what people have seen and felt. These people have told of the things which they themselves have discovered; you must thus discover before you can understand their writings.

One of the commonest of birds, one that sings earliest in the spring, is the song sparrow. Try to find one, or its nest, and then you will appreciate this little poem.

SONG SPARROW

"The bobolink builds in the grass,
The robin in the tree;

But no retreat is half so sweet
As a hawthorn bush to me.
Cree-cree-carolee-cree,

As a hawthorn bush with thee.

"We love the sunshine and the rain
That comes in April weather.
We sing our song, nothing goes wrong
When we are here together.
Cree-cree-carolee-cree,

When we are here together."

Author not known

To read well we must not only think, but think definitely. Attention must be given to one thing at a time and so held, until a spontaneous picture rises in the mind, and manifests itself.

III. OBSERVATION AND IDEAS

A CHILD'S BOOK

There are many good books, my child,
But the best of them all for you

Is the book that is hid in the greenwood wild,
All bound in a cover of blue.

'Tis the book of the birds and the bees,

Of the flowers and the fish in the brook;

You may learn how to read if you go to the trees
And open your eyes and look.

"Elfin Songs of Sunland."

By permission.

Charles Augustus Keeler

In all our studies we must first observe. Then we must learn to use names or words for what we have seen in talking. We must also be able to use adequate words in writing about what we have seen, and we must use such ideas and words in reading.

These four steps are all important in their place and in this order. One of them is no more important than another, and they cannot be separated.

THISTLE DOWN

Never a beak has my white bird,
Nor throat for song,

But wings of silk by soft winds stirred
Bear it along.

With wings of silk and a heart of seed,
O'er field and town,

It sails, it flies

some spot has need Of a thistle down.

Clara Doty Bates

Now realize that you see things clearly in your mind in proportion to the attention you gave when you first observed them.

When we read or talk with people we often have only vague ideas of many things to which they refer. They are of things which we have not carefully observed. Sometimes a word will awaken no picture in the mind. Why? Either because we never saw or carefully observed the thing, or because the name given to it is not familiar.

"Wait."

१

Nature alway is in tune;
Nature alway hath a rune.
Let it be an autumn day;
Let it be a day in May;
Nature alway hath a rune;
Nature alway is in tune.
Let it be in autumn late:

There is music when we wait.
Once I waited very long;

But my life became a song.

Timothy Otis Paine

In the preceding poem, for example, you may think at first that the word "rune" is used here merely to rhyme with " tune " and that it may mean song. If you look it up in the dictionary you will find that "rune

means some

thing mysterious or a poem or song about something obscure or mystically expressed. Thus, you find that it is really a better word than "song." In fact, it is the best possible word because a "tune " of the trees and breeze is not so definite as human song or as words.

Still, after you have looked it up in the dictionary and found out all this you will have a vague idea not only of

this word, but of the whole poem if you have not listened to the soft murmur of the breeze among the oaks or pines. Definite, adequate ideas can be secured only by adequate attention. This attention to things must be followed by attention to the meaning of words. We must not only have the object in mind; we must understand the right word for it; but no attention to words can compensate for the lack of careful, direct observation of things.

BILLY AND ME

Where the pools are bright and deep,
Where the gray trout lies asleep,

Up the river and o'er the lea,

That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the blackbird flies the fleetest,

Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the bluebirds chirp and flee,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
Where the hay lies thick and greenest;
There to trace the homeward bee,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the hazel bank is steepest,
Where the shadow lies the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free,
That's the way for Billy and me.

James Hogg

If you speak to someone about some walk or about some beautiful things that you have seen, or tell a story, you will find your voice skipping about in response to your thinking, simply because you think and enjoy your ideas. But if you count aloud the number of pupils or the number of seats in your room, how does your voice sound? Word follows word on the same pitch. One thing is just like another. You expect and think each time, not something new, but an exact repetition.

Your voice will go on one pitch in the same way if you count the number of words in the first two or three lines of this poem, "Billy and Me," or if you pronounce word after word as if you wished someone to spell them.

If you give words in this way, or if you give words without seeing the pictures they represent, just pronouncing them so that people will get the words, who can tell what you are reading about?

On the contrary, suppose you are the boy that went with Billy and saw it all. Feel the fun as he did, and tell your fellow-students. How does your voice sound this time?

What did you have to do in order to make us understand and enjoy what you were reading? You had to realize the scene yourself. You had to see everything happen in your mind. If you use words without seeing and enjoying the things which the words describe, can you make anybody else enjoy them? Can you make one see the river, the meadow and the hay?

Another proof that to read well you must really think is the fact that, if you come to a word you do not at once understand, such as "lea," for example, your speaking of it will convey no idea. If you understand that it is the same as meadow, or open field, or pasture where boys can run and play, then you will read it easily and simply, and give one who hears you the picture.

You must know the words and the scenes before your mind will be free to see the mowers and the hay or hear the scythes. Everything must live. You may even smell the hay and imagine yourself jumping upon it. You must let your mind see, hear, feel, touch, smell and do anything which you would do in life.

One picture must fill your mind until you have spoken the words belonging to it; then another picture will come and this must be told in the same way.

As each picture appears, let it make you enjoy it, love it; if you do, the person who listens will see it and enjoy it with you.

When you are out in the woods or wandering through the fields, or by the brooks, if you observe carefully and enjoy everything, you will be storing materials in your mind so that in reading about trees, brooks, flowers, grasses and birds, they will come in to your memory or enable you to create objects or scenes still more beautiful.