Summer Work for Scout Troops and Others

Summer Work for Scout Troops and Others By J. H. Paul THE livest kinds of summer work for boys are afforded by the summer vacation. Outings among the mountains offer unique materials, the best of methods, and one of the surest means of character-building. When taken under scoutmasters who have themselves been trained in the observation of nature afield, these outings place in our hands a new power, a vital factor, an unexpected resource, in the education of youth. This resource, long previously evident, is only just now beginning to be utilized. I. What Nature Study Does for the Boy Definite, unmistakable reactions have been secured each sum- mer among boy scouts and bee-hive girls for many years past. Two sets of these will here be summarized. Last summer, in American Fork canyon, a group of boy scouts at the breakfast campfire called my attention to a large, slender, shining, blue-black wasp (a species of Ammophila), dragging a good-sized spider over the surface of the ground. "Watch her carefully," I advised; "she is about to bury it as food for her future offspring." The boys gathered around in a close circle to watch the wasp at her strange work. At first she paid no attention to them as they crowded near; but presently some got too close and, dropping her prey, the wasp flew off. Returning, she was unable to find the paralyzed spider, which she had stung and then brought there. So the boys placed it directly in her path of travel along the ground; but still she did not stumble upon it. Again and again they put the spider where they thought she must encounter it, but she con- trived to miss it by many a hair-breadth margin. Her ways of devious stupidity in coming so close to her object and yet not discovering it, set the boys to laughing. At length, baffled, she flew away, abandoning her prize. The Wide Sweep of Nature's Teaching "Well, what of it?" asked one college president to whom the incident was related; "isn't it all perfectly silly to make so much ado about the ways of a-wasp? Have we nothing more important than that to spend our time upon?" Nothing more important in the whole realm of education, I

SUMMER WORK FOR SCOUT TROOPS 395 beg to assure my college friend; for this kind of observation has a many-sided effect upon the interests and attitude of the boy. It trains his eyes, sharpens his powers of perception, creates and whets his appetite for the real truth of things, leads to accurate and sus- tained observation, enables him to make deductions from the facts observed, and, by the way, prepares him to reject one of the funda- mentals of evolution. This college president is a man intensely interested in the theory of evolution; and, had he been just a little better acquainted with the implications of his hobby, he could have perceived in this lowly incident a fact that throws doubt upon a main element in his theory. For evolution implies that there is no essential difference between the apparent foresight of the wasp in storing food for her offspring and the real foresight of man in making provision for his children. The stupidity of the highest wasps tends to invalidate the theory of the evolutionist; for these wasps have been declared (by Mr. and Mrs. Peckham) to be tool-using. If they are, they bridge one great gap between man and the lower animals. But they probably are not; and it was observation by two such groups of students afield that seems to me decisive against the supposed tool-using habits of Ammophila. These facts are mentioned merely to show the wide sweep that simple observations of nature may take. My college friend dis- plays lack of insight in supposing that to learn the ways of wasps and spiders is of slight consequence. He goes on preaching a doc- trine that every-day occurrences before his eyes, if a nature guide should open them for him. would evidently reverse. Eight Notable Nature Projects Before other groups of boy scouts, in Mill Creek canyon, also last summer, the following definite problems were put. Those numbered 1, 3, 6, and 7, were readily answered by nearly all; 2, 4, and 5 by several; while number 8 was a puzzle, solved by only a few. 1. Locate, but do not go near, the nest of the hermit thrush — the bird that you can hear singing so gloriously from the mountain side at dawn and at early evening. The boys were told that this nest was within ten rods of tent No. 4, amid a witches' broom, in a clump of fountain birch, not five feet from the ground. 2. Find and photograph, along the stream bank, the nest of the Traill fly- catcher. From observation of its activities, estimate how many of our most annoying insect foes, such as gnats, mosquitoes, deer flies, horse flies, blow flies, and house flies it destroys daily. 3. Discover and, by imitating their call — Phae, dee, dee, — attract to you a flock of long-tailed chickadees. By observing them as they work in the trees, give your view of this saying: "No chickadees, no forests." 4. Lie in wait by the stream till the water ouzel comes along. Tell three re- markable things that it does. Why is it called the wonder-bird?

396 IMPROVEMENT ERA 5. Collect a few leaves from each kind of tree or shrub growing in this canyon within half a mile of the wigwam. Identify each from the leaf alone. Classify them into three grades as preventers of floods and savers of mountain soil, giving reasons. Which are most useful as (a) firewood, (b) building material, (c) forage for stock, (d) refuges for birds and wild life, (e) for ornamental planting in the valleys, (f) for renewal of the forest cover on barren hills? 6. Imitate the calls of chipmunk, ground squirrel, tree squirrel, coyote, coney, rock chuck, badger, long-crested jay, magpie, grouse, etc. What does each feed upon? What is its value to man? 7. Observe and name the large flying insect that hovers, poises, darts, and rests on plants of the open ground in front of the wigwam. How many hundred midges, gnats, mosquitoes, flying ants, etc., do you suppose it catches in an hour? What can we do to aid it in its good work? (The dragon fly.) 8. Identify poison ivy and three of the hay-fever weeds. How can we exter- minate each? What first remedy for ivy-poisoning grows all around the wigwam? (The gum plant; also the golden rod.) What use did the pioneers make of the gum plant? (Used it for arnica.) Note its three devices for protection against insect enemies. Striking Testimony of the Soil-Makers How nature makes the fine soil on which plants live, as con- trasted with the coarse soil in which they merely stand, was the great problem. There, on the high cliffs, covering them in many colors, were the evidences of this stupendous miracle of nature — the rock lichens, moss-like but tight-clinging patches of gray, green, red, yellow, brown, black. Scouts were advised to collect and preserve some of these evidences of this marvelous, silent, age-long, and unnoticed major operation of nature, without which men must have remained savages and civilization been forever impossible. From these high, cool places the scouts brought lichens, mosses, alum- roots, rock mats (Pterophytons), fragile ferns, and mountain lover. Scoutmasters, greatly impressed by this lesson, treasured its proofs, its specimens, and its sweeping implications. II. What Boys Can Do for Nature Study Notwithstanding a popular notion to the contrary, boys really like to work. This is especially true when they feel that they are doing big things. With a little directed effort in nature study, boys can do big things for other people, and even for people in distant places. One scout troop of Salt Lake City, at the writer's suggestion, made a collection of canyon wild flowers, preserving and mount- ing them according to the directions given. This herbarium of perhaps 200 species, each with its true common name, was taken a few years ago to the international meeting of scouts in London. The collection was greatly admired, for our plants are easily dried in summer, most of them retaining their colors. Scientists, artists, and botanists of various nations gathered around this unique work

SUMMER WORK FOR SCOUT TROOPS 397 of a troop of boy scouts; many sincere expressions of approval and interest were heard. That little exhibit of Utah flowers made many friends for Utah — friends among men of science and learning. It was a remarkable piece of missionary work, and so easily effected! Moreover, what it had done for the boys who, under Mr. Heisler, had prepared the flowers, can be readily imagined. The main point, however, is that what this troop, No. 51, did with results so remark- able and with such enthusiasm and development in the doing, almost every scout troop can do without much trouble. The chief need is a scoutmaster who knows (a) the wild flowers, or (b) the trees and shrubs, or (c) the desert species, or (d) the weeds and wonder plants of farms and dry lands. Each troop should specialize on the plants of a certain area or of a certain kind. This would avoid wholesale duplications, and would insure the exchanging of plants among different troops — a neighborly kind of reciprocity And aid. What Scouts Can Do For Scientists Let each troop make a herbarium of a certain group of plants, and deposit a duplicate set with scout headquarters. Then the council, by writing to various museums and to other scout troops throughout the Union and certain foreign countries, could ascertain which museums and troops would deem it a great favor to receive a set of our plants. The council could then, with the compliments of the troop that gathered the plants, send the collection free to the scientific institution or scout organization that desires it. What this procedure would mean to scouting, to Utah, to the boys and others who engage in it, is beyond one's power to esti- mate. So good a turn by any troop of Utah scouts would earn the gratitude, the praise, and the respect of each scientific body that received the flowers. And the work can be done if we really desire to do it. Scoutmaster Bybee of Hooper collected a thousand species in a single year; from 100 to 300 can be secured during any summer outing of a few days by a scout troop. Just how to do this need not be shown here. It is enough at present to say without hesita- tion that this great work is possible. The manner of doing it, the preparation of the scoutmasters, the direction of the scouts, the details for the drying, mounting, and naming of the specimens, must come later. In making such collections, boys learn, not merely names, but distinctive marks, and not infrequently the botanical features that separate species from one another and the chief outward characters that belong to groups or genera. Herbert Spencer remarks that to classify objects of nature, we learn, not only the names of things, but the marks they have and the classes they belong to; and classi- fication, or the building up of concepts, is what is meant by educa-

398 IMPROVEMENT ERA tion. Let no one, therefore, suppose that this kind of work, though simple and pleasurable, is not truly scientific. It cultivates per- ception, memory, order, and generalization; it teaches truth at first hand, appeals to judgment and discrimination, and lays the best foundation for the future study of more advanced topics in nature. Nature is the Science for all People But will the reader kindly observe what this high praise of a simple and easily acquired kind of knowledge does not imply? Nature science — or work in the open with only eyes, ears, nose, hands, and the sense of weather and temperature as equipment — is not claimed to be better than college science, which consists largely of indoor work in laboratories, with costly equipment. The claim is only that nature science is different. Without question, both are excellent. But the study of nature in the open is for all people, without exception, since there are none who cannot do well in it; while most of the regular college science is for specialists only. Na- ture science is that which each and all may acquire with a minimum of effort and with little instruction and guidance when once a true beginning has been made in it. And youth is the time to make this beginning. "Strike while the iron is hot." Few, I fancy, can have wholly forgotten the elation, the vigor, the joy, "the unbought grace of life," that they experienced in youth from the discovery of little secrets of nature in the open when they first explored region after region of the great out-of-doors. If there is, in the entire field of education, anything else more stimulating, more ennobling, more uplifting than these contacts of youth with nature, it has not been recalled by any of the great writers, who seem to be a unit in giving this testimony. Have you not noticed the fire of this enthusiasm in the eyes of boys and girls who make discoveries afield? Charmed with the ways of wild life and the fragrant breath of woodland and canyon, they note with absorbed interest the doings of bird, insect, wood- chuck, or coyote, and thrill at the gorgeous beauty of each new wild flower. To witness the character development, the sharpen- ing of the mental powers, the stabilizing of the power to attend and conquer, that come from directed observation in the open, is a revelation to those who have not had the privilege of participating in this kind of summer work with boys. To every normal youth, nature work in summer is truly recreation; it is almost play — a fascinating game with moving pictures thrown in. Scoutmasters are for it to a man; they are not slow to discover the zest and zeal, the energetic persistence, the spiritual uplift, that grow out of the discovery of wonders concealed in common objects and every-day phenomena.