Bird Day | Page 2

against which legislation can be only palliative and of local efficiency. Public sentiment, on the other hand, if properly fostered in the schools, would gain force with the growth and development of our boys and girls, and would become a hundredfold more potent than any law enacted by the State or Congress. I believe such a sentiment can be developed, so strong and so universal that a respectable woman will be ashamed to be seen with the wing of a wild bird on her bonnet, and an honest boy will be ashamed to own that he ever robbed a nest or wantonly took the life of a bird.
Birds are of inestimable value to mankind. Without their unremitting services our gardens and fields would be laid waste by insect pests. But we owe them a greater debt even than this, for the study of birds tends to develop some of the best attributes and impulses of our natures. Among them we find examples of generosity, unselfish devotion, of the love of mother for offspring, and other estimable qualities. Their industry, patience, and ingenuity excite our admiration; their songs inspire us with a love of music and poetry; their beautiful plumages and graceful manners appeal to our ?sthetic sense; their long migrations to distant lands stimulate our imaginations and tempt us to inquire into the causes of these periodic movements; and finally, the endless modifications of form and habits by which they are enabled to live under most diverse conditions of food and climate--on land and at sea--invite the student of nature into inexhaustible fields of pleasurable research.
The cause of bird protection is one that appeals to the best side of our natures. Let us yield to the appeal. Let us have a Bird Day--a day set apart from all the other days of the year to tell the children about the birds. But we must not stop here. We should strive continually to develop and intensify the sentiment of bird protection, not alone for the sake of preserving the birds, but also for the sake of replacing as far as possible the barbaric impulses inherent in child nature by the nobler impulses and aspirations that should characterize advanced civilization.
Respectfully,
J. STERLING MORTON,
Secretary of Agriculture.
Other friends of the birds responded cordially to the request, as will be seen by the following letters:--
WEST PARK, N. Y., April 22, 1894.
Dear Sir,--In response to yours of the seventeenth, I enclose a few notes about birds to be read upon your "Bird Day"--just an item or two to stimulate the curiosity of the young people. The idea is a good one, and I hope you may succeed in starting a movement that may extend to all the schools of the country.
Very truly yours,
JOHN BURROUGHS.
628 HANCOCK STREET, BROOKLYN, N. Y., April 25, 1894.
MR. C. A. BABCOCK.
Dear Sir,--Yours of the nineteenth is received. I am delighted to know that your school children are to have a "Bird Day." I wish I could be there to tell them something of the delight of getting acquainted with their little brothers in feathers; how much more interesting they are when alive and doing all sorts of quaint and charming things than when dead and made into "skins" or stuffed; and how much greater is the pleasure of watching them to see how they live, where they get their dinner, how they take care of themselves, than of killing them, or hurting them, or even just driving them away. If the boys and girls only try keeping still and watching birds to see what they will do, I am sure no boy will ever again want to throw a stone at one, and no girl ever to have a dead bird on her hat.
Very truly yours,
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
CLINTON, April 30, 1894.
My Dear Sir,--It strikes me that your idea is a particularly happy one. Should you institute a "Bird Day," the feathered tribe ought to furnish music for the occasion. A chorus of robins and thrushes and a few other songsters would be more appropriate than an orchestra. With thanks for your cordial good wishes, I am,
Yours faithfully,
CLINTON SCOLLARD.
From the Department of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania this encouraging letter was received:--
HARRISBURG, April 27, 1894.
SUPERINTENDENT C. A. BABCOCK.
Dear Sir,--In your plan to inaugurate a "Bird Day" you have struck a capital idea. When in the name of agriculture a scalp act can be passed resulting in a year and a half in the payment of $75,000 by the county treasuries of Pennsylvania for the destruction of birds that were subsequently proved to belong to the feathered friends of the farmer, it is high time to make our pupils acquainted with the habits and ways of the feathered tribes. Some birds remain with us the whole year, others are summer sojourners, still others are only transient