Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers | Page 5

enjoyment of, country life in all its phases--farming, camping, fishing, walking--than has John Burroughs. His books are redolent of the soil, and have such "freshness and primal sweetness," that we need not be told that the pleasure he gets from his walks and excursions is by no means over when he steps inside his doors again. As he tells us on more than one occasion, he finds he can get much more out of his outdoor experiences by thinking them over, and writing them out afterwards.
Numbers 28, 36, and 92 of the Riverside Literature Series consist of selections from Mr. Burroughs's books. No. 28, which is entitled Birds and Bees, is made up of Bird Enemies and The Tragedies of the Nests from the volume Signs and Seasons, An Idyl of the Honey-Bee from Pepacton, and The Pastoral Bees from Locusts and Wild Honey. The Introduction, by Miss Mary E. Burt, gives an account of the use of Mr. Burroughs's writings in Chicago schools.
In No. 36, Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers, the initial paper, Sharp Eyes, is drawn from Locusts and Wild Honey, The Apple comes from Winter Sunshine, A Taste of Maine Birch and Winter Neighbors from Signs and Seasons, and Notes by the Way (on muskrats, squirrels, foxes, and woodchucks) from Pepacton.
The collection called A Bunch of Herbs, and Other Papers, forming No. 92 of the Series, was designed with special reference to what the author has to say of trees and flowers, and contains A Bunch of Herbs from Pepacton, Strawberries from Locusts and Wild Honey, A March Chronicle and Autumn Tides from Winter Sunshine, A Spray of Pine and A Spring Relish from Signs and Seasons, and English Woods: A Contrast from Fresh Fields.

INTRODUCTION.

It is seldom that I find a book so far above children that I cannot share its best thought with them. So when I first took up one of John Burroughs's essays, I at once foresaw many a ramble with my pupils through the enchanted country that is found within its breezy pages. To read John Burroughs is to live in the woods and fields, and to associate intimately with all their little timid inhabitants; to learn that--
"God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here."
When I came to use Pepacton in my class of the sixth grade, I soon found, not only that the children read better but that they came rapidly to a better appreciation of the finer bits of literature in their regular readers, while their interest in their new author grew quickly to an enthusiasm. Never was a little brother or sister more real to them than was "Peggy Mel" as she rushed into the hive laden with stolen honey, while her neighbors gossiped about it, or the stately elm that played sly tricks, or the log which proved to be a good bedfellow because it did not grumble. Burroughs's way of investing beasts, birds, insects, and inanimate things with human motives is very pleasing to children. They like to trace analogies between the human and the irrational, to think of a weed as a tramp stealing rides, of Nature as a tell-tale when taken by surprise.
The quiet enthusiasm of John Burroughs's essays is much healthier than the over-wrought dramatic action which sets all the nerves a-quiver, --nerves already stimulated to excess by the comedies and tragedies forced upon the daily lives of children. It is especially true of children living in crowded cities, shut away from the woods and hills, constant witnesses of the effects of human passion, that they need the tonic of a quiet literature rather than the stimulant of a stormy or dramatic one,--a literature which develops gentle feelings, deep thought, and a relish for what is homely and homespun, rather than a literature which calls forth excited feelings.
The essays in this volume are those in which my pupils have expressed an enthusiastic interest, or which, after careful reading, I have selected for future use. I have found in them few pages so hard as to require over much study, or a too frequent use of the dictionary. John Burroughs, more than almost any other writer of the time, has a prevailing taste for simple words and simple constructions. "He that runs may read" him. I have found many children under eleven years of age who could read a whole page without hesitating. If I discover some words which I foresee will cause difficulty, I place such on the blackboard and rapidly pronounce and explain them before the reading. Generally, however, I find the text the best interpreter of its words. What follows explains what goes before, if the child is led to read on to the end of