Bird lore - Project Puffin

328 Bird -Lore
school curriculum. There should be no mistake in understanding this distinction.
If we desire to see bird- and nature-study taught in our schools, we
must see to it that it is kept to a true and high standard, from the lowest grade
up. It may be taught as simply as one chooses—in fact, the simplest methods
are usually the best methods—but these methods should rest on a firm foun-
dation of real knowledge, and not on a sketchy, anecdotal method patched
together without any definite purpose out of scrappy, 'catchy' bits of
information. Compare such books as 'The Woodpeckers' and 'The Bird
Book' by Mrs. Eckstorm, or 'The Handbook of Nature-Study' by Mrs.
Comstock, with some of the so-called elementary bird- and nature-books,
and see how possible it is to follow a thoroughly careful, scientific method
in a simple, accurate way even with children.
Reviewing, next, the lectures on birds and related subjects which have
been subjected to the criticism of being over-popularized, let us take one
backward glance, to see what has been the occasion for such lectures. Until
the Audubon Society was formed, and the Division of Biological Survey estab-
lished, the public, with the exception of trained students, knew as little about
the habits and activities of birds, probably, as it did about the forms of deep-
sea life. Now and then a born observer, a true nature-lover, gleaned some fact
of interest or noted some unobserved phase of behavior with reference to
birds; but, in general, great ignorance about this subject was everywhere so
common as to be unperceived.
These conditions at first demanded lectures of a more or less popular
nature, to present to and impress upon the mind of a thoughtless and indifferent
public the facts of the alarming and needless destruction of bird-life, then at
its height. Through these lectures or talks, whether circulated in print or by
word of mouth, a certain kind of necessary information was made current.
After this earlier critical period followed one which has been described as
more strictly educational, based upon an ever enlarging acquaintance with
bird-life. Readers of The Auk, Bird-Lore, The Wilson Bulletin and The Condor
in this country, and of equally comprehensive foreign ornithological publica-
tions, have kept abreast of the thorough and rational study of birds conducted
at widely varying points, with reference to many phases of bird-life. Some
of the lectures now available to the public present notable facts gleaned from
these latter sources; but certain ones deal mainly with statistics of a former
day which, although striking and well worth every one's consideration, have
become a kind of ornithological cant through repetition. In addition to this
drawback, some of these lectures are evidently put together with the idea that
an audience must be entertained or cajoled into listening to a talk upon birds.
These are the lectures which offer stones in place of bread. It is not necessary
either to reiterate statistics which had their most immediate application at a
time when the terms economic ornithology and conservation of natural re-
sources were not generally understood, or, to assume that the subject of bird-