Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-10-04
THAT EXISTS WITHOUT REVER-
ENCE OR HONOR.
DON'T PLUCK WILD FLOWERS
Enjoy Them by Observation and
Leave Them Tor others to Do the
Same Extinction of the Sweet Ar
butus by Vandal Hands in Many
Localities.

uay, SnldISSu upOu a tuSul6 very ID
miliar to The Republicans readers,
and whose lesson in these many years
ought to have been borne in upon the |
we mean the wanton |
picking of flowers, says the Springfield |
Republican. The speaker at Chautau-
qua recognized advance toward a true |
respect for the wild growth of field |
and forest, through the far higher con-
ception of the nature of education,
which has come into acceptance.
Teachers no longer teach thoughtless
sentimentalism, but thinking senti-
ment,-a distinction with great diff
ference. The nature study of the
present, though it has its bad phases,
is passing out of them; the vivisection
stage is disappearing, and reverence
for nature is taking root in the child's
mind, just as fast as the teachers
themselves learn it. This develops
from the study of the child, which is
now part of education, study which
may become mechanical or morbid,
but in its essence is moral, discovering
what effects are produced on the
child's mind and in the light of such
discoveries guiding the teaching the
child receives. Thus, said the
speaker
The old notion that it is beau
tiful sight to see children gathering
large punches of wild flowers because
they loved the flowers, was based on
an immoral principle. 1t is surely
false training to teach child that be-
cause he loves a thing he therefore
has right to destroy its life. If
train my boy when young that he
should pull the flower and sacrifice its
life and beauty to his flower love, l
am doing all that can to put into his
life the feeling that he has a right to
sacrifice to his own personal gratifca-
ton the things he loves"
One may easily follow out this prin-
ciple into lie, and see how it directly
nurtures the innate selflshness of mar
an evil legacy from sayagery, which
leads a man to regard his wife as his
property, and in common walks of life
makes him call her my woman" ant
which causes parents to hold the same
view of their children. Respect FOL
the individual is the outcome of evolu
ton, and that respect is due in its de.
gree to the other living creatures ot
God-the horse, the dog, the OK, the
cat; and it is but a just step forward
to respect the flower.
This is a matter particularly worthy
of consideration in the summer
months, when the rich p1easurers and
the fresh-air children from the cities
and the good bourgeois as well rush
into the country for better air and wa
ter and the beauty Of nature. All OF
these have the same mischief in their
hands for the flowers and ferns-they
cannot content themselves with wit
Messing the beauty OF the earth and
enjoying the sight. but they must
grab their handfuls or their armfuls
of flowers. If the new ideas of edu-
cation as development OF human
character to finer sort could reach all
these people. they would not commit
these outrages, which are destroying
all the rarer beauties in the country as
they have long since banished them
from the immediate surroundings OF
the city. Thus the trailing arbutus
used to be very abundant around
Springfield, Chicopee and Holyoke:
and now, while 1t may yet be found in
a good many spots. there are hum
dreds of its old haunts that know II
no more. Blake's woods, now a men,
ory of the past, abounded with it 20
years ago; it was found in many q
piece of West Springfield woods; II
was frequent near Ingersoll grove. In
Forest park 1t is catalogued as still
existing, but 1t can only be said to ex-
ist-it does not flourish. Mt. Tom.
since 1t became a resort, is not only
almost denuded OF arbu.us, in compar-
ison With the past, but the walking
fern, one of the most curious and in
teresting of plants, has nearly dissp-
peared, and the cardinal flower is quite
extinct It is the common fate OF
lovely things in the rush OF human
greed. Connecticut was so alarmed
over the plumber of the beautiful
climbing fern and the arbutus, some
years ago, that the legislature put
both under protection by statute:
Massachusetts ought to do the same
for the climbing fern does grow north
of the state line, though fortunately
very few know It. The lack OF respect
for nature was shown, by the way, in
the use to which this lygodium pal
matum was put by those for whom II
was grabbed up by the roots. Deli
cate and graceful, with a light wild
fragrance,-a these qualities were
killed by smoothing it out with hot
irons in order to hang I'm festoons over
lace curtains and disfgure "parlors."
The maiden-hair fern is another mar
velously beautiful plant that is treated
in similar fashion. II any one wants
to see what comes TO country where
tourists and summer people abound, !
they can do II in the Scottish High
lands wherever the Cook and Gaze
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