The truth is that your study of what you see gives you the power to see the things about which you read or hear. Thus, when you read history, if you really enjoy it, you allow yourself to picture other countries, cities and islands. You can sail on the ships, travel on camels, enjoy everything as if you were there.

TRAVEL

I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,

And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;

Where in sunshine reaching out

Eastern cities, miles about,

Are with mosque and minaret

Among sandy gardens set,

And the rich goods from near and far

Hang for sale in the bazaar;

Where the Great Wall round China goes,

And on one side the desert blows,

And with bell and voice and drum,
Cities on the other hum;
Where are forests, hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoanuts
And the negro hunters' huts;
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;
Where in jungles, near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in a palanquin;
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted city stands,

All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,
Not a foot in street or house,
Not a stir of child or mouse,
And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.

There I'll come when I'm a man
With a camel caravan;

Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes, fights, and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Read this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson on "Travel," and let yourself wander about the world. Allow pictures to come into your mind and enjoy and show one at a time. Then you will awaken others to think and see.

To read or to talk well or to understand other people when they are speaking, one must have ideas springing up spontaneously with words. This requires you to know the objects around you, and to know the words that stand for them. To use words correctly you must understand what the words are meant to represent.

If no picture arises in the mind we do not know either the objects or the words that stand for them. We must know both. We must have true impressions before we can have adequate expression of any kind. Though we may not see a great many things, yet if we observe carefully the few objects that we do meet, materials will be stored up in our minds so that we can appreciate what we have seen. Not the number of things we see, but the careful attention we offer them gives our minds the power to realize ideas.

IV. OBSERVATION AND FEELING

Then the little Hiawatha

Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in Summer,

Where they hid themselves in Winter,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them "Hiawatha's Chickens."

"Song of Hiawatha."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is another important reason for careful observation of nature. Not only does our study of trees and birds, colors and sounds, brooks and lakes, insects and animals,

give us correct ideas; it also develops our power to feel. Unless we have come into close touch with the world about us our emotions will be vague and indefinite, if not lacking altogether. We shall fear nature. We shall be afraid of night under the beautiful stars. We shall have little genuine admiration for nature and take little part in the life of things. Right nature study gives us a great number of feelings and makes these feelings deep and permanent.

Whatever we think we should also feel. Feeling without thinking is weak, and thinking without feeling is cold and hard. Thinking and feeling naturally go together.

There is something in the air

That is new and sweet and rare,
Song of birds from bush and tree,
Blackbird's trill and bluebird's song,
Robins calling all day long.

And some gentler, tinier things,
Odors and the whir of wings.

Author not known

One of the very first emotions that should be awakened in us and practiced for the development of our voices and powers of expression is this "admiration of nature."

In the fields we should not only see different pictures, but we should feel them. We should enjoy the blackbird's trill and the bluebird's song. The blackbird awakens more gladness, the bluebird more tenderness and the robin more exhilaration and joy.

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world,
For the banner of blue that's above it unfurled,
For the streams that sparkle and sing to the sea,
For the bloom in the glade and the leaf on the tree;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the mountain peak,
Where the wind and the lightning meet and speak,
For the golden star on the soft night's breast,

And the silvery moonlight's path to rest;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the rippling notes
That come from a thousand sweet bird throats,

For the ocean wave and the sunset glow,
And the waving fields where the reapers go;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the ones so true,
And the kindly deeds they have done for you;
For the great earth's heart, when it's understood,
Is struggling still toward the pure and good;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the One who guides,
For He holds the ships and He holds the tides,
And underneath and around and above,
The world is lapped in the light of His love;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

W. L. Childress

In reading such a poem as "Beautiful World," our whole nature should awake and as a result we should be moved to express what we really feel.

By cool Siloam's shady rill

How sweet the lily grows!

How sweet the breath beneath the hill

Of Sharon's dewy rose!

Lo, such the child whose early feet

The paths of peace have trod;

Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,

Is upward drawn to God. .

...

Reginald Heber

Observe what lessons nature teaches. We find fables everywhere. The most lovely flowers come out of a little mud in the dark earth. Thus the lily climbs in a dark pool and floats and blooms on the surface of the water. This should teach us to be patient, to look up, and to feel that the worst conditions can be transformed into joy and love and happiness.

The evening star has heard,
And flutters into sight,
O childhood's vesper-bird,

My heart calls back, Good-Night.

Edith M. Thomas

Careful observation of nature will not only awaken a present feeling, but will fill the memory with beautiful scenes, songs and stories. What sweet memories of childhood have been treasured by listening to the songs of the vesper sparrow, and what tender feelings are expressed in these lines.

THE SONG THE ORIOLE SINGS

There is a bird that comes and sings,
In a professor's garden-trees;
Upon the English oak he swings,

And tilts and tosses in the breeze.

I know his name, I know his note,
That so with rapture takes my soul;
Like flame the gold beneath his throat,
His glossy cope is black as coal.

O oriole, it is the song

You sang me from the cottonwood,
Too young to feel that I was young,

Too glad to guess if life were good.
And while I hark, before my door,

Adown the dusty Concord Road,
The blue Miami flows once more
As by the cottonwood it flowed.
And on the bank that rises steep,

And pours a thousand tiny rills,
From death and absence laugh and leap
My school-mates to the flutter-mills.
The blackbirds jangle in the tops

Of hoary-antlered sycamores;
The timorous killdee starts and stops
Among the drift-wood on the shores.
Below, the bridge a noonday fear

Of dust and shadow shot with sun-
Stretches its gloom from pier to pier,
Far unto alien coasts unknown.
And on these alien coasts, above,

Where silver ripples break the stream's
Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove
A hidden parrot scolds and screams.