About the Nature Library

In the words of its own prospectus, the Nature Library was built to answer a universal question: “How can I most quickly and surely learn to know the beautiful world that lies all about me?”

Ten Striking Features

(1) The fifteen volumes form a series that covers all important branches of natural history. There is no other guide to nature projected on the scale of this one. The original idea was a great one, and it has been worthily worked out. The books are an answer to the universal questions: "How can I most quickly and surely learn to know the beautiful world that lies all about me?"

(2) The books are written in a style that attracts the general reader to the study of nature at first hand. This is the fundamental purpose of each writer. The view-point of the beginner is never forgotten, for there will always be a majority who are just starting in the study of Nature. The plan of each volume is easily understood; the chapters are intelligible, informing, and entertaining. The vocabulary of technical science is absent to a large degree.

(3) Many of the writers are scientists of international reputation. They all know their subjects, and share the new scientific spirit, which would give to laymen the results of scientific research. It amazes the uninitiated lover of the woods to find out that every tree and every plant under his feet has been the subject of study, that it has a name, that its relationship to other plants is a matter of accurate knowledge. This knowing of plants by name is the beginning of the sciences of agriculture and horticulture.

(4) Each volume covers one large group in the animal or plant kingdom, and describes all the important genera and species found in that group. The reader gets at a glance over the table of contents a comprehensive idea of the scope of the group, and sees the relative importance of its branches, and their relation to each other. Each volume is a modern, dependable handbook for the scientific student. It saves him time spent in searching through technical publications for needed facts. The author has done this research work, and summarized the results.

(5) The Nature Library is a unit, exhibiting the universal unity of nature. The volumes are knit together by innumerable evidences that plants and animals live together and in diverse and curious ways help each other to live.

The student of nature may begin on one line of study but it broadens into others. He does not know a flower until he knows the insects on whose visits the flower depends for the setting of its seeds. From "Wild Flowers" he turns to the books on insects, moths, and butterflies. "Bird Neighbours" describes that little animated jewel, the ruby-throated humming bird. "Bird Homes" adds valuable information about its eggs, nest, season of hatching, and care of young. "Wild Flowers" describes the flowers that cater to this nectar-loving bird, on its pilgrimage from the tropics to its nesting places in the North. "Mosses and Lichens" gives the life story of the lichens that the bird uses in building its nest. The whole problem of protective mimicry is opened by this clever nest that looks like a knot on a branch. Every volume in the Nature Library is brought into use in following up this thrilling subject.

(6) Besides known facts, these books point out animals and plants about which little is yet known. The common house fly's life history was worked out but a short time ago. It has only recently been discovered to be the chief agent in the spread of typhoid fever.

John Burroughs learns something new every day, right on his little farm up the Hudson. To the wide-awake student he says: "What no man ever saw before may the next moment be revealed to you!" The beginner has before him always the possibility of making discoveries that will extend the limits of useful knowledge. The Nature Library points the way.

(7) Some of these volumes have no competitors in the field of nature literature.

(8) The incomparable pictures are second to no other feature. By them the reader is led to study nature at first hand, the true aim of each author. The chief photographer is master of his art, and is a trained scientist besides. The volumes are all copiously illustrated. Of the 7,000 and more pictures, 430 are plates in colors; 4,000 are half-tones from photographs, nearly all from life, and 2,600 are line drawings, showing details of structure.

(9) The books are admirably printed. The typography, dull paper, and wide margins make reading a pleasure to old and young eyes. The royal octavo size, and the uniform, tasteful binding make the Nature Library a set of reference books which is the pride of any library.

(10) Every member of the typical, wide-awake American family makes use of the Nature Library and acquires a greater and more intelligent love of the world outdoors through reading and observation. From the little ones who learn through the pictures, to the grandfather who recalls by reading, the hunting and fishing of his early life on the frontier, the books justify the claims made for them. A great need existed which the Nature Library alone fills.

A Tale and a Moral

"How is a baby rabbit fed until it can forage for itself?" This question from the Superintendent of Schools set the children to thinking and the teachers to rummaging in books to find out. Children asked their parents, and nobody knew. The city librarian had calls for books on animals, A lady indignantly returned the volume, "Animals." with the comment: "Twenty pages and more on rabbits, and not a word on how the young are fed!"

"The answer to your question is on the title page," said the librarian.

So it is: "American Animals, a popular guide to the mammals of North America, etc." Mammals suckle their young. The fact that the rabbit is included in this book proves it a mammal.

This incident shows that we need some guidance as to how to use books of reference. The average person turns the leaves of the book until he comes to rabbits, and then reads in hope of finding out the fact required. Disappointment and loss of time result. The book is discredited in the opinion of the questioner, and for no fault in the author, but from a faulty method of using the book.

To use any book of reference so as to get all the help possible from it, first grasp the book's scope by reading the title page, and going carefully through the table of contents. Read the author's preface and introductory chapter. Having laid hold of the plan and limits of the book and the author's viewpoint, you are ready to make use of the chapters that follow.

How to Study Nature

Nature study is genuine only when one studies Nature at first hand--when the student is not content to read books about nature. The test of a book's value is this question: "Does it attract the reader to go out and find the things it describes and pictures?"

"There is the great book of nature spread out before you. Go out and use your eyes!" This is very well for the trained naturalist. He will see a thousand things on a short walk. But the untrained person is bewildered and discouraged, because he can see so little in comparison. How have the eye and mind been trained? By books that stand on the naturalist's shelves, in which he has "looked up" plants and animals. The beginner must be told what to look for in such a situation, at such a time of day, between certain dates. He needs just such a guide in each branch of natural history as the Nature Library furnishes him.

Nature study is best taught where it is not scheduled for a daily lesson. The finding of some interesting or wonderful thing, like the transformation of a chrysalid into a butterfly, halts every other lesson, and a fine, spontaneous lesson in nature study is given. The best teacher tells nothing that the children can find out for themselves. She merely directs their observations, and talks little. The subjects thus informally introduced form a basis for drawing and language lessons that fix the subject in mind as no tedious drilling would do. What a child has seen with wide, wondering eyes is not forgotten. It is a thrilling moment when a child sees a little brown cricket rub the file and scraper of his wings together to produce its cheery "song." The swollen joint of the leg where the ear is located is easy to see. Now, in after life no sight or sound of a cricket will be meaningless. No walk will be lonesome if a cricket is singing. The apparent happiness of the little fellow is contagious.

I like the plan of following lines of study that focus about one centre. The teacher knows what are her own tastes and her facilities for getting materials. Detached lessons are not desirable. It is profitable to follow one line until interest wanes.

The series of suggestive lesson plans that follow are based upon the idea of a centre about which material and knowledge may accumulate. The lessons for children of different ages are on subjects taken from the Outlines for Nature Study in use in the public schools of the City of New York. It is the writer's hope that teachers and parents with the Nature Library at hand may realize what a stimulating call to know the world outdoors is uttered by each volume. The set effects a great saving of time for those who must prepare themselves to teach lessons about plants and animals with which they have but slight acquaintance.