One day I asked the pupils to bring me in any specimens of stones they might find in the vacant lots and the fields; and then I promised to give them a talk about these stones. I expected perhaps twenty or thirty specimens. What was my amazement and secret horror when, the next day and the next came dozens and dozens of specimens until, in a few days, I had over a ton and a half, containing 3,000 specimens. There were granites, gneisses and schists and quartzes; there were sandstones, slates, shales, limestones, glacial scratchings, marbles and onyx; there were geodes, crystals, ores, stone hammers, arrow-heads, brickbats, furnace slag, and fossils. I took everything smilingly, and at night the janitor and I buried many duplicates and the useless stuff in a deep hole where they wouldn't be likely to get hold of it again. We soon possessed an excellent cabinetful, and had fine times talking about the making of stones--the crust of the earth--former inhabitants, the great ice age, and such simple geology as they could understand; and they did understand; that did not end it. We studied plants in the same way; physics and chemistry, with home-made apparatus. Of course, it all took time, and a good deal of it; and there wasn't any extra pay for it, either; but there are labors whose recompense is far more precious than dollars and cents. And so I find enthusiasm also for out-door science, among secondary pupils and among the great body of intelligent people of our cities; and if nature is so accessible, and pupils are so eager for its secrets, and we still worship books and ignore the visible objects and forces so freely at our disposal, there is no other conclusion to arrive at, except that the teacher himself is either too ignorant or too indolent to make proper use of them. It takes time; it needs enthusiasm; it needs a genuine love for the subject in hand, and a profound interest in and sympathy with the student. The subjects in which field work may be made very useful are geography, geology, botany, and zoölogy, and the objects are, of course, apparent to all. First, it cultivates a familiarity with nature, which is wholesome and desirable. We are living in an artificial age. Children nowadays get too much pocket money; there is too much theater; too much smartness; too much flabbiness for the real business of life; too much blasé yawning; too many parties; too much attention to dress; the color of the necktie; the crease of the trowsers, or the make of a gown. The only meaning science has for many of the richer classes is the curved ball of the pitcher, the maneuvers of the quarterback, or the manly art of self-defense. I know of nothing that will counter-act the indifference of parents and lead the young mind back to a simpler and more humanizing condition of life than to make it familiar with old mother earth, the stream, the valley, the tree, the flower, and the bird.