Lessons Learned 
 from Nature 
 
 By 
 FRED HIGH 
 
 TORENT TTT r= eT eCTTTPTTTEToTOEPEaRSR PETRI NEF ee TERR PPP a TN PETER ee er etree NAT 
 
 Twenty-three Thousand 
 
 PRICE, 25 CENTS 
 
 Distributed by 
 THE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION 
 
 6315 Yale Ave., Chicago 
 
 RA een Ten aT ROTO Coe SUE NET Oe Le re ae eave Sat TS ea 
 
Lessons Taught by Nature 
 
 Copyright, 1919, by Fred High. 
 
 Why the Owl Is the Symbol of Wisdom 
 
 Owls live on rats, mice, beetles, shrews, gophers 
 and other undesirable settlers in the field. Uncle 
 Sam’s experts have figured that rats eat up annually 
 $1,000,000,000 worth of food; they keep 50,000 
 farmers occupied feeding them; 50,000 laborers and 
 mechanics are busy repairing the damages done by 
 them; an army of doctors are trying to kill the deadly 
 germs spread broadcast by them; they have twice 
 brought the bubonic plague to our shores from India 
 where 2,000,000 men, women and children died in 
 1907 from this dread scourge; there are 200,000,000 
 rats in the United States; there are less than 2,000,- 
 000 owls; rats breed once a month and have ten toa 
 litter; an owl lays from two to four eggs each year; 
 owls live in barns, sheds, and the woods; rats have 
 followed man everywhere—that is why we feed the 
 rats and shoot the owls. 
 
Learning 
 from the 
 Birds 
 
 THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 This is a practical age, and the questions that natur- 
 ally come to our minds are: Does it pay? Why all 
 this fuss about birds? Wouldn’t it be time more prof- 
 itably spent if we were to study how to better serve 
 humanity? These are fair questions. 
 
 Those who ask them seem utterly oblivious of the 
 fact that the birds are man’s untiring employees as well 
 as being counted among his true friends and unsur- 
 passed entertainers. The farm, the orchard, the gar- 
 den, and the vines and shade trees are their natural 
 habitat. Their speech is a song. Their food is the 
 pests, germ-breeding and deadly insects, which are the 
 natural enemies of man. 
 
 We religiously study about the plagues of Egypt 
 which Pharaoh encountered thousands of years ago, 
 quite forgetful of the fact that in one year the birds of 
 Massachusetts alone consumed 21,000 bushels of insects. 
 
 The Government bulletins show that the farmers and 
 fruit growers are losing $1,000,000,000 a year by reason 
 of the havoc wrought by the insects which the birds 
 formerly destroyed. Ninety per cent of these little 
 feathered friends have been ruthlessly destroyed by us, 
 and now we are paying for this folly just when we can 
 least afford to do it. 
 
 The cotton growers are losing $100,000,000 a year 
 through the ravages of the boll weevil. They have not 
 
 1 
 
yet learned that quail, pheasants, and prairie chickens 
 are worth $100,000,000 a year to them as protectors of 
 their cotton crops, so they shoot these invaluable little 
 workers and call it sport. In the meantime the world 
 suffers for the want of cotton. 
 
 The chinch bug is now able to destroy $100,000,000 
 worth of grain because we have allowed this eternal 
 pest to join hands with our old-time enemy, the Hessian 
 fly, who destroys $200,000,000 more of the grain grow- 
 ers’ crops because it’s such great sport to kill quail. 
 
 At this time when we are asked to save grains of 
 wheat, and ounces of fat, and when we must ourselves 
 go without the staff of life in order that we may win the 
 war, it does seem strange that we should deal in such 
 great figures as the Government has set before us and 
 be told that these represent our annual loss because 
 we have destroyed the birds. } 
 
 White Crested Black Polish Hen Which Shed Her Black Feathers 
 for White Ones. A Freak of Nature. 
 
 2 
 
The Pet Hen. 
 
 The following short biography sets forth a few of the 
 incidents taken from the life of a busy member of a little 
 family of eight White Crested Black Polish chickens, 
 most of whom furnished the writer food for thought long 
 after they ceased to furnish the rest of the family food for 
 the table. The picture shown here was the last of the 
 interesting little family to leave us. In her young days 
 she was really a prize winner at a poultry show, but that 
 was ten years before her picture was taken. At that time 
 she was feathered in solid black except her topknot, 
 which was solid white, but ten years makes a difference 
 in a hen’s life. This particular hen lived to be twelve 
 years of age. She was the last of a flock of eight, most 
 of which died natural deaths. During the winter of 
 1917-8 she spent almost three months of her time warm- 
 ing herself by the kitchen stove. She was as well house 
 broken as any cat or dog that you ever saw. She knew 
 each member of the family as well by sight (and appar- 
 ently by name) as a parrot does. She kept religiously 
 in her small box unless given the freedom of the house Ly 
 a member of the family. In a home where there are chil- 
 dren eating is necessarily an irregular event. But ths 
 hen thought it was her Christian duty to partake of 
 food every time any member of the family did. Four 
 years ago she began to shed in a few white feathers and 
 at the time of her premature death she was, as shown 
 in this picture, two thirds white. Was it that she turned 
 gray or why did she change her black feathers for white 
 ones? She weighed five pounds the first time she was 
 entered at the chicken show and at the time this pic- 
 ture was taken she weighed two pounds and one ounce. 
 I could write a book on the human traits of that hen. 
 The chanticleer who headed this pen was literally hen 
 pecked most of the time for he would stand and let the 
 
 3 
 
other members. of his family pluck the feathers from 
 his top-knot as a mere pastime. She ceased to lay eggs 
 three years before she died. If we ever erect a monument 
 over her grave we shall probably have inscribed on it 
 this epitaph: ‘During the Twelve Years that She was 
 with Us She Taught Us Many Valuable Lessons about 
 Life.” 
 
 It was only a few years ago that the American hen 
 was looked upon as a sort of consort for the farmer’s 
 wife. Eggs furnished the pin money for the women- 
 folk. But today the chicken business totals more than 
 $650,000,000 annually. Eggs have gone up from two 
 cents for a baker’s dozen of thirteen to one dollar for 
 twelve. The latter price, even before eggs, like aero- 
 planes, soared into the clouds, was often paid for se- 
 lected eggs for the specially select trade. $50 for set- 
 ting purposes is not unusual, while a single hen is. 
 worth as much as a farm in Texas, and a married one, 
 together with her family, often costs more than a city 
 residence. Samona County, California, alone, has 
 recently produced 10,000,000 eggs in a year. 
 
 Birds work for us so faithfully that every time a hen 
 cackles or a rooster crows over the fact that the chickens 
 of America produce $650,000,000 of wealth a year, our 
 little feathered friends twitter tee-he and sing of their 
 glorious work, accompanied by nature’s symphony 
 orchestra, for they have added such untold wealth that 
 it is impossible to compute it. In fact it is estimated 
 that if it were not for the birds that within fifteen years 
 human life would be impossible upon the earth. These 
 blessings are brought to us without effort on our part. 
 In fact they have been brought to us in spite of our 
 actions. It is time that we give intelligent thought to 
 the welfare of these, our own best friends. 
 
 4 
 
What is the first lesson that the baby bird learns? 
 What to eat. The parents of these little, helpless crea- 
 tures must provide for them or they starve. 
 
 The problem of procuring food to eat has ever been 
 the first great problem of both individuals and nations. 
 We in America are prosperous becausé we are the 
 first great nation that can be said to be well fed. Our 
 broad fields, which pour millions of bushels of wheat, 
 corn, oats, rye, and barley into the great maw of a 
 hungry world, are the foundation upon which our na- 
 tional prosperity is built. Our fertile wheat and corn 
 fields build our cities, run the factories, educate the 
 people, create prosperity, and feed many in the nations 
 across the seas. 
 
 Egypt had extensive wheat fields, but the Egyptians 
 had only the crude way to harvest their grain, and it 
 was learned by hard experience that farmers could 
 only use what they could harvest, and so nations went 
 hungry because they couldn’t harvest enough to eat. 
 They spent their time in search of food. 
 
 A New Story. 
 
 The Bible story of Joseph is one that every boy and 
 girl ought to read. Joseph was sold by his brothers 
 to some travelers who took him to Egypt, where, from 
 the poor, hungry, half-starved victim of pride and 
 
 + 
 5 
 
prejudice, he arose to the highest place, next to the 
 king, and saved the Egyptians from starvation by 
 storing away for the lean years a goodly portion of 
 the grain that was raised in the seven years of plenty. 
 
 . Why the Eskimos Suffer. : 
 
 The Eskimos have never learned to store up during 
 the long day when the game is plentiful, so that they 
 will not suffer when the long winter night comes on 
 when it is dark for one hundred and eighteen days. In 
 describing the actions of these primitive people as the sun 
 sets, Dr. Frederick A. Cook says :. 
 
 “Just prior to the falling of darkness, with that in- 
 stinctive and forced hilarity with which aboriginal be- 
 ings seek to ward off impending calamity, the Eskimos 
 engaged in their annual sporting event. It is a curious 
 sight, indeed, to behold a number of excited, laughing 
 Eskimos gathering about two champion dogs which are 
 to fight. | 
 
 “After the forced enthusiasm of a brief period of 
 excitement, the Eskimos begin to succumb te the in- 
 evitable melancholia of nature, when the sun, the 
 source of natural life, disappears and darkness de- 
 ‘scends. A gloom descends heavily on their spirits. A 
 subtle sadness tinctures their life, and they are pos- 
 sessed by an impulse to weep. At this season, hour by 
 hour, the darkness thickens; the cold increases and 
 chills their igloos; the wind, exultant while the sun 
 shines, now whines and sobs dolorously—there is some- 
 thing gruesome, uncanny, supernatural, in its siren sor- 
 row. Outside, the snow falls, the sea closes. Its 
 clamant beat of waves is silent. Sea animals mostly 
 disappear; land animals arerare. Their source of phys- 
 ical supply vanished, the Eskimos unconsciously feel 
 the grim hand of want, of starvation, which means 
 
 i) 
 
death, upon them. The psychology of this period of 
 depression partly lies, undoubtedly, in this instinctive 
 dread of death from lack of food and the natural depres- 
 sion of unrelieved gloom. As the last rim of the sun 
 sank over the southern ice, the natives entered upon a 
 formal period of melancholy, during which the bereave- 
 ments of each family, and the discomforts and disasters 
 of the year, were memorialized.” 
 
 Civilized man has learned to store up food when it 
 is plentiful, so that he may have an abundance when 
 nature fails to produce. Individuals have to solve this 
 food problem, just as the ancients solved it, just as the 
 birds and animals solve it. The birds teach their young 
 how to procure food. 
 
 A Lesson We Haven't Learned. 
 
 But we haven’t learned to protect our food from our 
 enemies, as the following facts, taken from the lecture 
 of Col. G. O. Shields, president of the League of Amer- 
 ican Sportsmen and Editor of Shields’ Magazine, will 
 show: 
 
 “Scientists have determined by careful computation, study 
 and investigation that the farmers and fruit growers over this 
 country are losing over $1,000,000,000 a year by reason of the 
 reckless and senseless destruction of birds during the past thirty 
 years. 
 
 “The cotton growers of the South are suffering a loss of 
 $100,000,000 a year by reason of the ravages of the boll weevil, 
 an insect that bores into the cotton stalk and kills it. Why? 
 Because the quails, prairie chickens, meadow larks and other 
 birds, which were formerly there in millions, have been swept 
 
 Mrs. Blue Jay and I have to hunt one 
 million insect eggs for our food during 
 the winter, then when summer comes, we 
 have to catch five thousand caterpillars 
 for our little ones to eat. 
 
 q 
 
away by thoughtless, reckless men and boys. Scientific men 
 announce that there is no way on earth by which these insects 
 can be destroyed except for the people to stop the killing of 
 birds, absolutely and at all times, and let them come back and 
 take care of the insects. 
 
 “The grain growers are losing over $100,000,000 a year on 
 account of the work of the chinch bug. They are losing an- 
 other $200,000,000 a year on account of the work of the Hes- 
 sian fly. Both of these are very small insects, almost micro- 
 scopic in size. It takes 24,000 chinch bugs to weigh an ounce, 
 and nearly 50,000 Hessian flies to weigh an ounce. A quail 
 killed in a wheat field in Ohio and examined by a government 
 expert, had in its craw the remains of over 2,000 Hessian flies 
 that it had eaten that day.” 
 
 A Long Journey. 
 
 The next question with our fathered friends is 
 where to find their food. ‘The little children often 
 wonder why father goes away to work, some to the 
 fields, others to the mountains, still others to the cities; 
 some have to travel about from place to place in search 
 of a chance to earn their living. 
 
 There is no tribe, race or nation which has to travel 
 as far as the birds in order to earn a living. Many of 
 our dooryard friends migrate in the fall and spring, 
 but few of us ever realize how far some of them really 
 have to fly to get from one land of plenty to another. 
 
 The golden plover probably travels over a greater 
 territory than any other living creature. They nest 
 along the arctic coast of North America, and as soon 
 as their young are old enough to care for themselves 
 fall migration is begun by a trip to the Labrador coast, 
 where the plover fattens for several weeks on the 
 abundant native fruits. A short trip across the Gulf 
 of St. Lawrence brings them to Nova Scotia, the start- 
 ing point for their extraordinary ocean flight, due south 
 to the coast of South America. a3 
 
 8 
 
The golden plover takes a straight course south, 
 flying high above the ocean, and, if the weather is 
 propitious, makes the whole 2,400 miles’ flight without 
 a pause or rest. If the weather is bad, they may make 
 two or three emergency stop-overs. Having accom- 
 plished their ocean voyage, they pass across eastern 
 South America to their winter home in Argentina. 
 
 After six months of activity there, they start back 
 to the Arctic by an entirely different route. They cross 
 South America and the Gulf of Mexico, reaching the 
 United States along the coast of Louisiana and Texas. 
 They move up the Mississippi Valley, and by early 
 June are again at their nesting site on the Arctic, 
 having made a round trip of more than 22,000 miles. 
 
 These long journeys have all been made necessary 
 because the golden plovers have never learned to save 
 and store their food and to build homes to protect them 
 from the storm. 
 
 “A squirrel and two nuts,” being a kodak picture taken in the 
 “Chicago Jungles” at Jackson Park. See the puzzled look on the 
 visage of “Bob” Morningstar as he watches Ye Editor focus (on 
 the squirrel). In the meantime A. L. Flude “snapped” and here 
 ts the result. 
 
 9 
 
An Intelligent Animal. 
 
 The squirrel is one of the most intelligent animals 
 for its size that one can find. It has learned to store 
 up nuts when they are plentiful so that it can feast 
 when the stormy days of winter come upon the world. 
 
 The flying squirrel hibernates during the winter— 
 just sleeps. It is stupid as compared with the squirrel, 
 and for all practical purposes it might as well cut the 
 winters out of its life as to be asleep under the ground 
 and practically dead to the world. 
 
 Monkeys With Fire. 
 
 We have learned to use heat to keep us warm, there- 
 by turning winter into summer. We have invented 
 electric lights and other forms of illumination whereby 
 we have turned night into day. Monkeys, apes, and 
 gorillas in the African jungles, we are told, will hover - 
 around a camp fire and seem to get as much comfort 
 from the warm blaze as human beings are able to de- 
 rive, but Mr. Monkey does not know enough to put 
 wood on the fire to keep it burning. That’s a lesson 
 many people never learn. 
 
 . But we ought not to be too severe on ine birds, for 
 we have over a million men in America whom we call 
 tramps, hobos, who travel like the birds and suffer all 
 the hardships of cold, hunger, and privation, because 
 they refuse to labor, and save, that they may honestly 
 consume. Idleness is only the minor wrong caused by 
 tramps. They are an actual burden to the workers of 
 America, for it costs about $125,000,000 annually to 
 feed them. 
 
 The smartest animal that lives in proportion to its 
 size is the ant. Darwin says: “The female coccus, 
 while young, attaches itself by its proboscis to a plant; 
 sucks the sap, but never moves again; is fertilized and 
 
 10 
 
lays eggs; and this is its whole history. On the other 
 hand, to describe the habits and mental powers of a 
 female ant would require, as Pierre Huber has shown. 
 a large volume; I may, however, briefly specify a few 
 points. Ants communicate information to each other, 
 and several unite for the same work or games of play. 
 They recognize their fellow ants after months of ab- 
 sence. They build great edifices, keep them clean, 
 close their doors in the evening, and post sentries. 
 They make roads and even tunnels under rivers. They 
 collect food for the community, and when an object 
 too large for entrance is brought to the nest, they en- 
 large the doors, and afterwards build them up again. 
 They go out to battle in regular bands, and freely sacri- 
 fice their lives for the common weal. They emigrate in 
 accordance with a preconcerted plan. They capture 
 slaves. They keep aphids as milch cows. They move 
 the eggs of the aphids as well as their own eggs and 
 cocoons, into warm parts of the nest, in order that they 
 may be quickly hatched; and endless similar facts could 
 be given. On the whole, the difference in mental power 
 between an ant and a coccus is immense; yet no one 
 has ever dreamed of placing them in distinct classes, 
 much less in distinct kingdoms. 
 
 Size and Intelligence. 
 
 “Tn comparison to its size, the ant is the most intelli- 
 gent of all living creatures, and by the same compari- 
 son it is the longest lived. Sir John Lubbock kept a 
 queen ant for fourteen years and he did not know how 
 old she was when he got her. If men lived as long for 
 their size we would have some of the inhabitants of 
 ancient Babylon and Egypt living among us as young 
 men.” , 
 
 George Washington is called the father of our coun: 
 
 11 
 
try, and certainly he earned the right of our love and 
 admiration by his life of usefulness and unselfish acts 
 in both times of war and times of peace. In one of his 
 great state papers he has given us this splendid advice: 
 “Economy makes happy homes and sound nations. In- 
 still it deep.” 
 
 Economy is the first law of self-preservation that we 
 must learn. Parents have to teach the children not to 
 eat too much. The mother bird sees little mouths 
 eagerly crowding each other to one side every time 
 she comes near her nest. Overeating has killed more 
 people than starvation. 
 
 The Spenders. 
 
 After economy in what we eat, perhaps, comes 
 economy in what we spend. In former days when most 
 of us were young the candy store got our pennies— 
 toys and playthings separated us from our nickels and 
 dimes. But such is not the general practice today, for 
 wise, far-sighted bankers now teach even the children 
 how to save. Saving children mean frugal citizens, and 
 frugal citizens mean more money in the banks. The 
 misers are disappearing and the money shavers and 
 hair splitters are not the leaders of finance that they 
 were in the days of yore. Even the public schools are 
 teaching the children the art of saving. Parents are 
 educating their children to the business practices that 
 give them that sense of security and faith in the future 
 
 12 
 
that comes to those who learn to eat and wear less 
 than they produce. 
 
 School children in sixty-four Chicago schools saved 
 $36,389.20 during twenty months. The school sav- 
 ings bank system has been brought to a higher stage of 
 development in Chicago than in any other city in the 
 country. Mr. Joseph R. Noel, vice-president for TIIli- 
 nois branch of the savings bank section of the Ameri- 
 can Bankers’ Association, at a recent meeting of the 
 school management committee of the board of educa- 
 tion, asked the board to take over the work which has 
 been done under the auspices of the bankers’ organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 The children have withdrawn for their own purposes 
 $13,963.16. As soon as they have saved $5 in the school 
 banks, they open a personal savings account in a local 
 bank. They have transferred $15,061 from the school 
 banks to regular banks in this way. 
 
 The Reapers. 
 
 The Bible teaches us that we will always reap exactly 
 the things that we sow. We all know that that is true 
 in plant life but how many understand that it is as true 
 of our own life, our thinking, our actions as it is of the 
 life of wheat, corn, trees, vegetables or anything like 
 that? 
 
 Let’s take one of America’s greatest business organiza- 
 tions and study it. During the Liberty Loan Drives, 
 the Red Cross and War Works Activities the writer 
 was piivileged to visit more than a hundred industrial 
 establishments, factories, shops, stores and plants as 
 a representative of the Speakers Bureau. We had the 
 pleasure of talking to men and women of many races, 
 colors and creeds. It was a wonderful experience. Now 
 that it is all over and we have had time to think of all 
 
 13 
 
that we saw and did there is one system or great indus- 
 trial organization where we found conditions approached 
 the living realization of the gospel as preached by the 
 Great Teacher. The International Harvester Company, 
 The Deering Works, and The Tractor Plant all seemed 
 to be permeated with the same purpose, the workmen, 
 the foremen, the office force all seemed to be imbued 
 with the same spirit—that was how can we serve best 
 at this time. | 
 
 These great industrial organizations are practicing 
 the great ideals of real religion. At the Harvester Works 
 we ate lunch at the plant, and at the same table, with 
 our little party, were men nationally known as factors 
 in the industrial world, the General Superintendent, 
 mechanics in overalls, the office clerks, some of the cheap 
 help and Miss Myrna Sharlow of the Chicago Grand 
 Opera Company—one big happy family at a common 
 family table. That’s democracy. 
 
 Noon Hour Forum Where Two Thousand Employees Gathered for 
 a Sort of Industrial Patriotic Chautauqua Program. 
 
 1¢ 
 
Why was this good feeling so prevalent? The Har- 
 vester emancipated millions of farmers from the slavery 
 of farm drudgery, a service to mankind which will grow 
 in importance as the ages pass. We have all talked about 
 how Food Won the War until it is a common story. 
 We are even now talking about how Food Will Save the 
 World. What kind of food? How did it come that we, 
 of all the nations of the earth, are the one that was and 
 still is the favored one, able to supply this great world 
 with Food? The answer is found in the fact that we are 
 the greatest Nation on earth when it comes to the use 
 of machinery as a means of multiplying the efforts of 
 men and women. One farmer. can do as. much now asa 
 hundred did in the days of old. This has given men 
 time to think. The tractor is doing’’as much to take 
 cruelty out of the lives of men. and women and to make 
 them more kind to horses and all animals as the reaper 
 did to dignify the work on the farm. All of this tends 
 to elevate the work of feeding the world. Each year 
 the farmers of America are more and more becoming 
 men of means, culture, independence, and power. These 
 blessings are being reaped because the very spirit of this 
 modern elevating influence is being sown by some one. 
 It is not a mere happening. 
 
 These great industrial plants with millions of dollars 
 invested and many thousands of men and women en- 
 gaged in the work of producing these great machines 
 have all been built around that one principle of better 
 serving the world and relieving the burdens of hu- 
 manity. It’s worth while. 
 
 As a moral and spiritual factor in the elevation of the 
 human race these great industrial institutions are doing 
 a wonderful work, fer as we take the drudgery and _ in- 
 human tasks from the animals, we are enlarging the 
 opportunities for mental and moral growth of our own 
 
 race, 
 15 . 
 
The reaping-hook, the cycle, the sythe, the harves- 
 ter, all helped to produce more grain, and thereby set 
 two-thirds of the people free from the land where they 
 had to labor to produce enough to eat, but even this 
 freedom didn’t give us time to read and think and play 
 and travel. It is only those nations who learn to econo- 
 mize who have reaped the blessings that inventions and 
 progress have to bestow upon the human race. 
 
 The world’s desperately poor are as poor today as 
 they were in the days when the rulers of Egypt built 
 the great pyramids with slave labor. 
 
 It’s a Woman’s Problem. 
 
 Parents ought to realize that the boys will be better 
 men and enjoy greater opportunities if they will only 
 learn the value of money, and start to save some of their 
 earnings: while they are growing up. What we say of 
 boys is equally true of girls, for they are learning the 
 lessons that at one time were for boys only. 
 
 It has been only a few hundred years since the men 
 thought that the women were not human, and even the 
 Christian church taught that a woman didn’t have a 
 soul. Women are everywhere taking their places right 
 along side of the men, and are assuming the responsi- 
 bilities that this new freedom brings. The Civil War 
 forced open the school doors to the lady teacher, the 
 typewriter forced her into the offices and gave her the 
 first insight into practical business. The world war has 
 taken her into every shop, factory, trade, calling and 
 avocation where man has before worked. The world 
 is now struggling with the problem of readjusting its 
 business, its politics, its thought so gs to meet the new 
 demands of the women of the world. 
 
 Mr. Lee Francis Lybarger has written a great book 
 on the tariff. He has delivered hundreds of chautauqua 
 
 ° 16 
 
and lyceum lectures on this great question over which 
 politicians have wrangled for centuries, and at each 
 lecture he has the audience ask questions and he says 
 that the women ask more practical questions than the 
 men. But why shouldn’t they? Women are the buy- 
 ers. They have to spend the money, for they are doing 
 the buying for the home; they pay the bills. 
 
 Women Advance a Step. 
 
 The increasing place that woman is holding in pro- 
 fessional life accounts in part for the large number of 
 bank depositors and customers among women. When 
 a woman is engaged in a gainful occupation, earning 
 and spending her own money, she realizes the safety 
 and the many other benefits of a good banking connec- 
 tion. She saves her money through a savings account 
 and she pays her bills by check. 
 
 Woman’s mother instinct goes a step further. She 
 teaches the little ones how to save. The toy bank was 
 a blessing; it was a mother’s far-sighted contribution 
 to the children’s future power and usefulness. Chil- 
 dren should be taught the use of a check book. They 
 should save their money, so that when they want to 
 purchase something they may do it in a way that 
 
 Policemen of the Atr. 
 
 Mrs. Frances G. Simmons, of Kenosha, Wis., writes: ‘' I have 
 nine of these Martin houses in our orchard, every.one of them was 
 packed to the limit with. martins this past summer. They were a 
 wonderful sight and a great joy to us.”’ 
 
 17 
 
strengthens their mind and heart in those higher prac- 
 tices that make for real character. They should early 
 in life be taught the use of a check book. The use of 
 check books, 4 cash register, and such devices have 
 done wonde o make us accurate, and accuracy means 
 honesty. 
 
 A Check on Dishonesty. 
 
 Before the introduction of the baggage check, travel- 
 ing was as hazardous as sailing the seas in the days 
 when the old pirates were masters, for it was a case of 
 grab first, and often passengers fought over the bag- 
 gage, as there was no one to identify the owner. Yes, 
 the ownership was often established by the law of the 
 jungle. Some one has said that the inventor of the 
 baggage check did more to make travelers honest than 
 the ten commandments. The check is a check on dis- 
 honesty, and the same can be said of the bank check. 
 
 The warden of the penitentiary at Marquette, Mich., 
 recently conducted an investigation among the inmates 
 of that institution and he found that one out of every 
 ten persons there admitted that if they had been 
 trained to use a check book they would not have com- 
 mitted the deed which resulted in their conviction and 
 sentence to this awful institution of mental torture, 
 moral degradation, and financial ruin, where despair is 
 written on the faces of those who enter and a hang- 
 dog look haunts them as they depart. And the use of 
 a check book would have saved ten per cent of them. 
 
 We have to feed the birds in winter, and when the 
 deep snow falls and covers the ground, our little feath- 
 ered friends suffer from hunger. Blizzards then sweep 
 them into an uneven battle for life where they soon 
 perish. That is why we have to provide food and 
 shelter for them. 
 
 18 
 
There is a great lesson for us in the study of the 
 bird’s nest. Whata great labor of love it is! But how 
 little the birds have really learned as a matter of econ- 
 omy in building! In most cases it is a new nest every 
 year. But there are lots and lots of people who are not 
 even satisfied with a nest. Even a house is not a 
 home. 
 
 The birds are always building. They are at the 
 mercy of every person’s whims. They have never 
 learned the lesson of permanency. Oh, yes, the purple 
 martin has been taught that lesson, so when Mr. and 
 Mrs. Martin make their summer home in a martin 
 house, they make it their permanent summer residence. 
 
 Build For Permanency. 
 
 People have to learn the lesson of permanency. Sav- 
 ages build houses of reeds and dried grass which the 
 winds blow down and the fires consume. How differ- 
 ent it is with the highest type of man! See our brick 
 houses, our stone castles, our concrete sky-scrapers 
 that defy wind and fire. 
 
 What is our most important lesson that we must 
 learn from this story? Isn’t it that we must begin 
 with the little things and learn from them the greatest 
 lessons of life? From the humming bird’s nest.to the 
 Jacob’s seventy-two room martin mansion is no greater 
 achievement than we have made here in America where 
 we have gone from the Indian’s tepee and adobe house 
 to the brownstone mansion and concrete palace that is 
 so common that it has lost much of its real greatness. 
 
 There is a lot of human nature to be learned from a 
 study of birds and animals. “You will know people 
 better if you learn more about dogs,” is an old saying 
 that is true. After we have studied about birds and 
 animals, we are then better able to understand what 
 
 19 
 
we read about great men and women. And every boy 
 and girl should be taught to study the biographies of 
 the world’s great men and women, for it is by a reai 
 understanding of their weaknesses, as well as their 
 strength, that we are able to emulate their virtues and 
 avoid the calamities caused by their mistakes. 
 
 Business Needs. 
 
 One of the greatest needs of our time is to have in- 
 stilled into the minds and consciences of us all the 
 practical fundamental facts of business. It is safe to 
 say that in music, art, healing the sick, defending the 
 innocent, teaching the youth, amusing the public, 
 catering to the lyceum and chautauqua, yes, selling 
 goods, disposing of the product of factory, store, farm, 
 and mill ninety per cent of all our effort is spent on 
 producing, and probably two per cent of our real 
 energy goes toward honest thought on how the pro- 
 ducer will sell his wares, where and when to sell. 
 
 Here in Chicago the Board of Education and the 
 Chicago Association of Commerce cooperate in secur- 
 ing positions for the graduates of the high schools, and 
 the schools are beginning to train the young for posi- 
 tions, ‘ 
 
 Our common work is the key to our life. Talk about 
 preparedness and the need of meeting a foreign foe, 
 what we need most in America is to learn to think for 
 ourselves, to see for ourselves, to develop ourselves, 
 to get the most out of life and to help our fellows. 
 
 Am I blaming any individual when I picture things 
 as they are? No. I am analyzing the system, that is 
 all. But the lesson which needs to be learned is that 
 the most independent person on earth is he who can 
 sell. Salesmanship is the greatest accomplishment of 
 our day. 
 
 20 
 
\ 
 
 A study of the birds lures children to the woods, to 
 the fields and streams; it develops their powers of 
 observation and trains them in the practices of original 
 research. In the world of invention, this is a necessary 
 habit. Edison invented the phonograph, and it was a 
 very crude affair. Even after the wax cylinder was 
 introduced, it was years before it was turned into a 
 commercial proposition. How could it be used? That 
 was the problem. 
 
 The Little German Band. 
 
 ‘Victor N. Emerson sat pondering on the constant 
 outgo of money and meager income from the phono- 
 graph, and as he mused he heard a little German band 
 playing on the street. An idea struck him. Why not 
 make records of music so that the phonograph could 
 supply a cheap form of home entertainment? A great 
 idea. The street players—five in number—were hired 
 and played all day making records. That was the real 
 start of the great phonograph business which now en- 
 gages the world’s greatest artists at fabulous salaries 
 and never ending royalties. 
 
 The trade mark of the Victor machine is the dog 
 that knows his master’s voice. Listening—a mighty 
 good thing for a dog to do, and sometimes it is as im- 
 portant for men and women and children, a habit that 
 the study of birds early develops. Victor Phonographs 
 are a result of Victor Emerson’s power to listen, 
 think, and appropriate to his own needs. The Victor 
 Talking Machine Company has assets valued at nearly 
 $25,000,000, paying dividends at about eighty-seven 
 per cent on its stock. The Columbia Graphanolia 
 Company is equipped to turn out one thousand talking 
 machines a day. The Edison, the Pathe, Sonora. and 
 others are all great giants. 
 
 21 
 
From $125,000,000 to $150,000,000 are spent on 
 phonographs every year in the United States, all be- 
 cause Thomas Young discovered, in 1807, that he could 
 record the vibrations of a tuning fork. Simple, wasn’t 
 it? Edison’s phonographic feat was the invention of 
 his impractical tinfoil record which he gave the world 
 in 1876. The telephone, started as a toy, was de- 
 veloped by close observation and much thought. 
 
 First Moving Pictures. 
 
 Moving pictures are marvelous because they are so 
 simple. They were first a few leaves of paper upon 
 which were printed comic pictures, assembled in the 
 form of a book, so that by turning the leaves rapidly 
 one got the suggestion of moving pictures. Today and 
 every day, 50,000,000 people, white, black, yellow, 
 brown, copper colored, and mixed hues; rich, poor, 
 heathen and civilized, attend a moving picture some- 
 where. | 
 
 Los Angeles, California, is the center of this great 
 motion picture industry. Twelve thousand people are 
 regularly employed making pictures in the Los,Angeles 
 Studios alone. ‘Theatrical stars draw five thousand 
 dollars a week for acting before the camera. Five hun- 
 dred automobiles are in daily use carrying the photo- 
 actors to various locations where they are to act. The 
 people of the United States paid $297,000,000 during 
 the year of 1915, to see the films developed in the Los 
 Angeles studios. And still they say this business is 
 only in its infancy. The new art of the future is be- 
 ing developed in the form of scenario writing. The 
 New York public library recently reported that the 
 book second in demand, next to fiction, was “Writing 
 the Photoplay,” a text book on this marvelous new art. 
 
 But all of these things are worth nothing to us un- 
 
 22 
 
less we learn to think, learn to see, to apply to our 
 needs. The power to think must be acquired before a 
 child can ever hope to be anything but a follower, a 
 servant, a worker who takes orders. . 
 
 What caused Armour’s great packing houses to 
 spring up all over the country? It meant some one 
 thought of anew economy. Trace it step by step, and 
 every advance was first a sight, then a meditation, and 
 some one got busy. Historians write, not because 
 they copy what other writers have written, but because 
 ‘they think and have learned to gather the world’s 
 important events from the great mass of dusty and 
 decayed ruins of the past and to restate them in a liv- 
 ing language. 
 
 Training the Eye to See. 
 
 School books are full of hints to write essays on this 
 or that theme, which all too often drive the children 
 to the encyclopedia or other books of reference, with 
 the result that the fine art of copying has been reduced 
 to a science. But this study of birds, live, natural 
 birds—Our Dooryard Friends—is one that gives a boy 
 or girl a real clutch on the power to observe. It is one 
 of the greatest trainings which can come to a youth. 
 It was Newton’s practiced’ eye of observation which 
 reasoned the falling apple into the universal law of 
 gravitation. Franklin’s kite was the beginning of Edi- 
 son’s electrical marvels. Watt’s mother’s teakettle was 
 first observed. Columbus saw before he sailed. 
 Algebra, geometry, arithmetic, geography, grammar, 
 history are hard to study, because they are not put to 
 practical use as fast as we learn the great lessons they 
 have for us. But even the babies can learn to study 
 the birds, learn to know them, learn to use their knowl- 
 edge of the little feathered friends who are also quick 
 
 23 
 
to get acquainted and anxious to show their love for 
 their benefactors. . 
 
 This is a practical problem and it is certainly a vital 
 and timely one. Birds can be brought back. A few 
 years ago Mr. Warren Jacobs of Waynesburg, Pa., 
 noticed that there were only four purple martins then 
 nesting in Greene County. He set to work and built 
 a splendid martin house. It was soon filled, and before 
 long he had a martin colony there, and last fall more 
 than 1,400 purple martins left Waynesburg for their 
 journey to South America, where they spend the win- 
 ter. Mr. Jacobs has a factory devoted exclusively to 
 the manufacture of bird houses, where he makes the 
 finest mansions possible for such customers as Henry 
 Ford, who has bought thirteen of these seventy-two 
 roomed martin castles. William Rockefeller has a 
 number, and Mrs. Potter Palmer, and many other well- 
 known people in every state. Europe, before the 
 war, bought these miniature bird castles. 
 
 The best way to teach children the fundamentals of 
 life is to familiarize them with bird and animal life about 
 them. I know from my own experience that the animal 
 and bird life about me during my childhood days had an 
 abiding influence on my own life, and for that reason I 
 have always encouraged my own children to make friends 
 with the world about them. . To aid in that work there 
 stands in our yard a beautiful bird house, where a little 
 colony of purple martins each year raise their families, 
 then migrate to South America, and return in the spring 
 to fight it out with the sparrows for possession of their 
 homes. 
 
 While reading this book we are educating our chil- 
 dren. We are doing more—we are helping the farmer, 
 the horticulturist, and the gardener—aiding the health 
 board to make it more sanitary and healthful for all 
 
 24 
 
who breathe the air. Yes, says the city or town dwel- 
 ler, this is all right for the rural community, but it 
 doesn’t apply to us. Yes, we often hear that story. 
 Hear it in spite of the fact that there are more trees in 
 the city of Chicago than there are in whole counties of 
 Kansas or Oklahoma. A study of the birds and the 
 lessons which we learn from them is as much needed 
 in the cities and towns as it is in the rural districts. 
 
 Which would you rather be, a little, timid humming 
 bird whose nest is almost as frail as a spider’s web, or 
 a martin who has learned that there are mansions made 
 for him where he can dwell and rear his family, if he 
 will but look for his home? And, as Charles Darwin 
 tells us that people are only birds evoluted into human 
 beings, let us take a look at two types of men and see 
 which one we would rather be. 
 
 The Old Circus Clown. 
 
 On a cold winter’s night, as the wind swept off Lake 
 Michigan, the Chicago Tribune pictured an old-time 
 circus clown clinging near the office radiator without 
 overcoat or collar. He stood snuffling miserably, wait- 
 ing for the information man’s attention. He said: “I 
 want to put a piece in the paper. I want to find my 
 son. I want to let him know that his old father is 
 destitute and needs him. He ought to take care of me. 
 Y’see, old age slipped up on me before I knew it, or 
 else I’d have been heeled and ready.” 
 
 The old circus clown’s mind wandered back to better 
 days and he said: “It seems like it was only yesterday 
 when I was knockin’ ’em dead in the first big top—Al 
 Ringling’s. Al’s dead now, and most of them that 
 clicked through the stiles to laugh at us are dead, too. 
 I seem like I’ve been left behind—stranded in a rube 
 town, with the show gone on to the big time.” 
 
 25 
 
And this was the man who had made the world 
 laugh, had earned a fortune twice over, but he had 
 never learned the lesson which we are trying to learn. 
 
 ' America’s Greatest Citizen. 
 
 Picture now a boy who learned the printer’s trade, 
 studied at night, saved his pennies, saw and thought 
 for himself, became the richest American of his day. 
 Rich in money, mind and health, And when George 
 Washington fought the War of the Revolution, it was 
 this same business man and diplomat who went to 
 France and borrowed the money which financed that 
 great struggle. Yes, Ben Franklin was our greatest 
 citizen. He founded the University of Pennsylvania, 
 founded the first public library in America, organized 
 an insurance company which is still extracting the fear 
 of want from the fangs of death. He manufactured the 
 first cooking stove, invented spectacles, and saw that 
 thrift was the basis of all of his usefulness. He wrote 
 more and better on this subject than any other writer. 
 His autobiography has influenced more men and wom- 
 en to achieve than any other book of the past cen- 
 turies. 
 
 The New Movement. 
 
 Ex-President Roosevelt says: “We Americans have 
 recklessly wasted our national assets in the past. But 
 now there has come a change. We are trying to pre- 
 serve our forces and utilize our water supply and care 
 for the soil, instead of merely exhausting it. One of the 
 pleasantest features of the new movement is the con- 
 stantly growing interest in wild life, and especially 
 bird life.” 
 
 Let us take just one example of that reckless waste 
 as found in the records of the great state of Pennsyl- 
 vania, where in 1885 the Legislature passed what was 
 
 26 
 
known as “The Scalp Act,” a piece of bone-head legisla- 
 tion that was to be in the interest of the farmers, and 
 which provided for a bounty of fifty cents on each 
 hawk, owl, weasel and mink killed within the limits of 
 the state. 
 
 Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam, then Ornithologist and 
 Mammalogist of the United States Department of Agri- 
 culture, in his report to the Department, estimated that 
 to save a loss of possibly $1,875 a year through the 
 destruction of poultry, the state of Pennsylvania had 
 in a year and a half paid $90,000. He further reported 
 that this money had been paid for the destruction of 
 128,571 benefactors, worth at least $3,857,130 to the 
 agricultural interests of the state. In other words, that 
 the state had for a year and a half been throwing 
 away $2,015 for each dollar saved. 
 
 It Pays to Miss. 
 
 It is estimated that each meadow mouse on a farm 
 causes an annual loss to the farmer of at least two 
 cents, by destroying grass roots, tubers, grain, and 
 young fruit trees. The marsh-hawk, one that is often 
 meant when the farmer cries chicken-hawk and grabs 
 his trusty rifle, eats about eight of these mice a day, or 
 2,920 ina year. Nowif Mr. Farmer misses his aim his 
 intended victim will put $58.40 into the community till, 
 and they do say that it is an exceptionally good milk 
 cow which gives as large a return as that. But why 
 does Uncle Reuben kill these hawks? Because hawks 
 of entirely different species have at some time carried 
 off his chickens. 
 
 What the Children Are Doing. 
 
 ‘In St. Paul, Minnesota, the boys like to go to school, 
 and when they get into the sixth grade it is hard to 
 pry them out. At that stage in their schooling a wise 
 
 27 
 
board of education has instituted manual training, 
 for every fourteen-year-old boy is a carpenter at heart. 
 And they don’t make corner brackets solely. They 
 make bird houses. The sixth-grade kid in St. Paul 
 who isn’t putting the finishing touches to a bird 
 house early in March is rare. When the bird houses 
 are all finished, three or four thousand of them, you 
 can see lads coming down every street in town to the 
 registration office. There they enter their houses in 
 the big annual bird-house exhibit, whereupon the con- 
 test really begins, with the whole city: interested. 
 
 The lads have a further incentive to set up their 
 bird houses, for there’s a prize well worth the winning 
 for the lucky little chap whose house is the first to 
 have a tenant. It doesn’t take long for that prize to 
 be won, however, for the birds of North America seem 
 to have passed along to their friends the word about 
 St. Paul and the refuge it offers. At least there are 
 more wild song birds housed in that city than in any 
 other in America—so far. Another and in some re- 
 spects an even more significant result of the move 
 ment is that the Humane Society of the city of St. 
 Paul has gone out of business so far as bird-killing 
 warnings are concerned, for every kid in town is the 
 legal guardian of the birds, and the wicked sling shot, 
 which has all too often driven them from other local- 
 ities, is there a device unknown. 
 
 Prizes? Of course, lots of them! And besides the 
 prizes there are hundreds of grown-ups eager to buy 
 the houses at the prices the little builders set on them, 
 for everyone almost in St. Paul has a bird house some- 
 where about the outside of his domicile. The city 
 buys a lot of them for the parks, and not long ago the 
 big real estate companies discovered that the placing 
 of the bird houses on development tracts drew the 
 
 28 
 
birds there and helped the sale of the building lots. 
 But if a boy doesn’t sell his house he doesn’t mind a 
 bit, for he probably knows where there’s a bird that 
 needs just the sort of a house he has built; so he sets 
 it up himself and waits patiently for a tenant to move 
 in. He rarely has long to wait. 
 
 WHAT THE SCHOOL CHILDREN ARE DOING. 
 
 w The Saat of none Birds 
 
 The Youngsters of St.Paul Have Made it That 
 
 Ae AO Cryer be Si, Pies Prehoms Fes 
 
 Une Hemant Woe it Twins, Gr, Logty Shuece anal Mobblerfaeet (NW Hose Watt tos Wad 45 Hwee ny Sexe ah tho ork ms de Blt Pies 
 
 The Ladies’ Home Journal wants pictures of community activities. 
 Send photographs, clearly described on the back, with the name of the 
 town and your own name and address, as they pay the highest mag- 
 azine rates for all such pictures that they accept for publication, 
 
 29 
 
The Results. 
 
 What does a study of the birds do for the children? 
 This question has been so well answered by Ernest 
 Harold Baynes, of whom Theodore Roosevelt says: 
 “Mr. Baynes writes in advocacy of a cause which by 
 practical achievement he has shown to be entitled to 
 the support of every sensible man, woman and child in 
 the country.” 
 
 Mr. Baynes in his splendid book, “Wild Bird Guests,” 
 which ought to be in the hands of every bird lover and 
 community builder, says: “JI have noticed that the 
 work of providing for the needs of wild birds has a 
 wonderfully good effect upon the people engaged in it. . 
 
 In the first place it awakens or stimulates an interest 
 
 in an important and fascinating subject, and provides 
 for the mental and physical activities an outlet which 
 can lead only to good. Through it the coming gen- 
 eration will get practical experience in the conserva- 
 tion of our natural resources, and thus by taking part 
 in a great national movement they will at an early 
 age begin to feel the joy of being useful. Most work 
 of a public nature is impractical for children, but here 
 is a work in which young people can be almost as 
 -useful as older ones and at the same time provide for 
 themselves one of the sweetest and most satisfying 
 hobbies known to man. Work for the birds tends to 
 thoughtfulness and consideration; inasmuch as it is 
 inspired by the work the birds do for us, it encourages 
 appreciation and gratitude, and a sense of justice and 
 fair play; as it brings to the worker a sense of the 
 helplessness of his feathered friends at certain times, 
 it begets feelings of humanity, kindness, sympathy, and 
 compassion, and stimulates warmth of heart; and if 
 some personal sacrifice is required in order to do 
 
 30 
 
* this work, the worker gets practice in unselfishness. 
 And it is the opinion of the author that if children once 
 learn these things, they will have a very fair start 
 towards good citizenship if they are not taught any- 
 thing else.” 
 
 THE HOUSE FLY. 
 
 DrizW; ‘S- Sadler’ says:>< We 
 can no longer consider the or- 
 dinary house fly as a harmless 
 nuisance or regard it merely as a 
 pest. This little insect is one of 
 the most dangerous on the face of 
 the earth as regards the health 
 and happiness of the human race. 
 Flies carry the deadly germs of 
 disease by the millions on their 
 feet. From 500 to 20,000 germs of typhoid fever and 
 other. summer diarrhoeal diseases have been found on 
 one foot of a single fly, and the fly, it should be re- 
 membered, has a half-dozen feet. The house fly ought 
 to be called the “typhoid fly” but for the serious fact 
 that it is also the means of carrying and communicat- 
 ing almost a dozen other forms of disease. Flies which 
 feast upon tuberculosis sputum have been found to 
 deposit: 3,000 tubercle germs with each fly speck, and 
 every fly is estimated to make twenty-five specks a day. 
 Thousands of people who are horrified to find a bed- 
 bug in the house are indifferent to flies as they swarm 
 about the food through the kitchen, crawl over the 
 face and lips of the sleeping baby, and expose the 
 entire family to the contraction of any dangerous dis- 
 ease that may be within halfa mile of their dwelling 
 place... It is time that we awaken to the fact that 
 mosquito bars and screens are cheaper than doctors’ 
 bills and funerals.” 
 
 31 
 
There are 180,000 cases of typhoid in the United 
 States in a year—and the fly is largely responsible for 
 this terrible consequence. Every year 70,000 infants 
 under two years of age die in the United States from 
 diarrhea and enteritis—and again the fly is responsible 
 to a considerable extent for this fearful result. 
 
 These facts are gathered from the report of Ernest A. 
 Sweet, past assistant surgeon United States Public 
 Health Service, and they ought to be studied. The 
 report says: “Naturally the combined effects of all 
 the enemies upon the fly population are almost neg- 
 ligible. The enemies that destroy the larvae are, how- 
 ever, much more successful in their inroads. First 
 place should, of course, be given to the birds, which 
 eagerly devour both larvae and adult forms.” 
 
 The New Classical ‘‘Panthenon’’ Jacobs Bird-House 
 The most elaborate martin house ever placed before the birdlovers. Sixty 
 rooms. Weight 600 pounds. This beautiful house from the Jacobs Bird-House 
 Company, Waynesburg, Pa., adorns the residence grounds of W. O. Ansley, 
 La Porie, a suburb of Houston, Texas. ; 
 
 32 
 
The City Hall. 
 
 OMAHA’S OBJECT-LESSON IN BIRD-HOUSE 
 BUILDING. 
 
 By C. H. English, Superintendent of Public Recreation, 
 Omaha, Nebraska. 
 
 In the Council Chambers of the City Hall of Omaha 
 was held on March 23, 24, and 25, 1916, the most 
 unique and beautiful bird-house exhibit ever staged in 
 a western city. The bird-houses were built by the 
 boys and girls of the Omaha grade schools in the 
 manual training department under the general super- 
 vision of Miss Helen Thompson. The material for 
 these houses was supplied by City Commissioner J. B. 
 Hummel, superintendent of parks and public property. 
 
 33 
 
Bird-Houses. 
 
 Over four hundred bird-houses were on exhibit and 
 ‘made.a wonderful display of art, genius, and excellent — 
 workmanship. All of these houses are to be set up in 
 Omaha’s beautiful parks, where the bird life will be 
 protected from harm by the squirrels and be encour- 
 aged to come to these bird sanctuaries. 
 
 The spirit of this western metropolis was aivertedt 
 
 from its great commercial growth, for the time, to the os 
 welfare of its feathered guests who are just arriving _ 
 
 from the south to give us the surety of spring and glad- _ 
 ness of heart by their joyful song. ‘There are to be 
 found in Omaha alone one hundred and fifty varieties. 
 and in the State of Nebraska, which has the reputation | 
 of having the greatest variety of birds of any state in- 
 the Union, are to be found in all seasons over four 
 hundred varieties. 
 
 An Object Lesson. 
 
 _ The greatest interest in bird-lore that Omaha has 
 ever shown culminated in this artistic and beautiful 
 exhibit. The Council Chamber, with its high ceiling 
 and beautiful, decorated walls, made a wonderful set- 
 ting for such an exhibit. Five twenty-foot trees were 
 brought in and served as an object-lesson on the cor- 
 rect method of hanging the houses. 
 
 Real Live Birds. 
 
 Real live birds were also placed in these trees, lend- 
 ing an actual atmosphere by their cheery song notes. 
 Various varieties of stuffed birds were placed in front 
 of a number of houses to show how the bird really 
 enters his home and gave an excellent realism to the 
 display. Hidden in one corner was a victrola, where 
 the Kellogg and Gorst records were constantly filling 
 the room with bird calls. This caused a mystery to 
 
 34 | 
 
adults as well as children, who could not at first detect 
 just where the birds could be singing so lustily. 
 
 Recognized Her Brother’s Record. 
 
 One of the interesting events developed when the 
 sister of Charles C. Gorst, the Harvard bird man, 
 recognized immediately her brother’s Edison record 
 of the bird songs. Mr. Gorst was formerly an Omaha 
 boy and was born in Neligh, Nebraska. His sister 
 states that he first learned the notes of the meadow- 
 lark and other birds while milking the cows on their 
 farm at Neligh. 
 
 In this exhibit of many kinds, shapes, colors and 
 styles of bird-house, thirty-eight of the local schools 
 contributed, each school sending from one to thirty 
 houses, while the Fort School for Boys sent forty in a 
 separate exhibit. 
 
 No Prizes Were Offered. 
 
 No prizes were offered. This exhibit proved without 
 a doubt that prizes were not needed; for, at most, 
 prizes would only be an artificial bait. The real mo- 
 tive for building them was loyalty to the school ex- 
 hibit, interest in bird life, and personal satisfaction in 
 actually constructing a thing of beauty, as each one 
 really was. 
 
 Public Interest. 
 
 Every boy or girl visitor found keen delight in seeing 
 either his own creation on display or that of his school. 
 The parents were no less filled with pride as the dis- 
 covery was made of a bird-house whose very dimen- 
 sions, color, and purpose had been a subject of discus- 
 sion at the dinner-table for the last four weeks. 
 
 Many thousands attended this exhibit, and the count 
 showed an equal interest on the part of adults. It 
 
was a source of education to every one, and one never 
 grew tired of discovering a new shaped house after 
 seeing the exhibit perhaps a dozen times. Some came 
 to take notes on how to build them. Other profession- 
 al men, school board members, city commissioners and 
 business men, wanted to buy one or two each. The 
 entire four hundred houses could have been sold on 
 the first day. One representative of a local cemetery 
 company secured the promise of fifty houses, to be 
 built by the Fort School boys, which are to be placed 
 in the cemetery, where the first bird sanctuary of its 
 kind in the West has been established. 
 
 Aided the Inventive Instinct. 
 
 This exhibit brought out very clearly the inventive 
 instinct in boys and girls, for no two bird-houses were 
 alike. One had hollowed out a cocoanut for a wren 
 house. Another had a wooden syrup pail inverted 
 with the roof on the bottom of the pail and the bail 
 acting as a swinging perch. 
 
 One little girl sewed two fig paiecles together and 
 put a roof on them. A little nine-year-old boy put 
 rockers on his house, so that the wind would rock the 
 little baby birds to sleep. There were unlimited styles 
 and shapes, but the rustic type predominated—log 
 cabins, tepees, ordinary logs hollowed out, and one 
 birch-barked cabin. Natural wood, martin houses, 
 tenement-like, for at least twelve families, was another 
 style. One little colored boy had started a bird-house 
 at his school when he had to undergo an operation on 
 his leg. He was unable to go to school, being confined 
 to his bed. The spirit was there, and he wanted to 
 exhibit his bird-house with the rest of his schoolmates. 
 So with the aid of a set of tools, borrowed from school, 
 and the assistance of his father, who was a plasterer 
 
 36 
 
by trade, this little fellow made his house on his bed 
 and finished in time to have it exhibited with the rest. 
 His father came to the exhibit to see it and to report 
 to his son. The boys of that school never tired of 
 telling the story of this littke stucco-house, which had 
 a prominent place on a front table. 
 
 Delegate from Out of Town. 
 
 The Fremont Board of Education sent two high 
 school boys to Omaha to _secure information on bird- 
 house construction and paid the expenses of the visi- 
 tors. Thus the interest which is permeating all Omaha 
 is reaching other cities in the state. 
 
 Great Value to the City. 
 
 The exhibit has been of great value to the city in 
 several ways. It has connected the school life with the 
 lessons to be taught in the study of birds, their habits 
 and needs. There will be less shooting of birds and 
 fewer eggs destroyed in Omaha this year. The inter- 
 est of the children has aroused into activity the adults, 
 who realize that birds have a commercial value to a 
 city and state as well as a moral value. It has shown 
 in a practical way the value of the manual training 
 departments in the public school. It will give greater 
 impetus to the study of bird life and its conservation 
 by all ages and, particularly, to the children, 
 
 This exhibit has been a revelation to the State Audu- 
 bon Society, which, with the local press, is responsible 
 for the initial interest, to the city officials, to the school 
 board, to the citizens in general, and to the school 
 children themselves. 
 
 All Omaha now has a new aspiration as a result of 
 this splendid constructive educational movement which 
 has aroused such an interest in the welfare of Omaha’s 
 feathered citizens——Reprinted from that splendid Bos- 
 ton Monthly, OUR DUMB ANIMALS. 
 
 37 
 
Henry Ford and His First Automobile Developed 
 from the Bicycle. 
 
 WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? 
 
 What does all this activity mean when measured in 
 terms of manhood, citizenship, and character? Does 
 it mean a wider vision and a better life? Most as- 
 suredly yes. 
 
 This Is Not a Flivver. 
 
 Henry Ford—you may have heard of him—and no 
 doubt you will hear a great deal more about this same 
 great character in the years to come—can take time 
 to personally look after his Bird Sanctuary on his 
 
 38 
 
great estate at Dearborn, Mich., where he has four 
 thousand acres dedicated to the use of the birds where 
 more than five hundred bird houses are dotted around 
 over this bird haven. Mr. Ford has taken such an 
 interest in our little feathered friends that he has issued 
 a booklet about the birds which make life one eternal 
 song for the great automobile manufacturer, for that 
 great moral leader and sociologist who has even made 
 crooked men straight by giving six hundred ex-convicts 
 positions where all but six have made good. Drop him 
 a post card at Detroit and ask for this booklet. It is 
 free and worth reading. 
 
 James J. Hill. 
 
 The late James J. Hill, known as the empire builder 
 of the Northwest, was a man among men because of 
 his farsightedness and broad sympathy. Mr. Hill . 
 began his business life at the enormous wage of one 
 dollar per week. He died worth perhaps one hundred 
 and fifty millions, but no one can ever measure the 
 worth of that great soul by cyphers, mere figures 
 strung together as though they were beads on a string. 
 In an editorial the Chicago Tribune said: 
 
 “The death of James J. Hill comes at a time when 
 our thought is clearer than it has been for many years. 
 We are better able to assay the merits of a true builder 
 of America and to appreciate the very great social and 
 economic services of this life of singular foresight and 
 constructive ability. We realize that if Mr. Hill leaves 
 a large fortune its sum is small compared to the wealth 
 he developed for others and the service his faith, his 
 imagination and his will performed for a great section 
 of the continent. We can discriminate between the 
 work and character of a great builder like James J. 
 Hill and the ravenous, destructive, and demoralizing 
 
 39 
 
activities of other men which backward laws and con- 
 fused public opinion were unable to control.” 
 
 When the Test Came. 
 
 But did he think only of Jim Hill when he was con- 
 fronted with a crisis? Oh no! It is said that when 
 the European war broke out and thousands of Ameri- 
 cans were seized with stage fright, or that panicky feel- 
 ing that is better understood by the expression “They 
 got cold feet,” thousands wanted to hide their own 
 savings, they tightened up on the credit that had been 
 extended to others and were about to draw in all loans 
 when this great financier, banker, and humanitarian 
 called his own bank directors together and said: 
 “There should be no trouble, but if there is, here is one 
 hundred million dollars of my own personal capital 
 which is at your disposal,” and the panic was averted 
 and we entered into the greatest industrial boom of 
 our national history. 
 
 The Real Benefit. 
 
 When great financial institutions like the First Na- 
 tional Bank of St. Paul, can aid in a campaign like 
 the one that has already made the twin cities the bird 
 center of America, why shouldn’t we all see the need of 
 conserving the one billion dollars of wealth that is 
 annually lost to us that could be saved if we but would 
 give the needed attention to our little feathered friends. 
 What they would then do in return for us as individ- 
 uals is nothing as compared to the greater blessing 
 that cooperation and our larger undertaking will mean 
 to our community and to our nation as measured in the 
 increase of heart, strength, and character of our citizen- 
 ship. 
 
Studying About Birds in School. 
 
 In Defiance, Ohio, there lives a school-teacher who 
 has devoted her life and talents to educating the youth 
 of her city. She has been a great lover of nature, and 
 has taught the boys and girls many great and valuable 
 lessons about nature and nature’s laws. She has been 
 the source of a perpetual fountain from which flows 
 that contagious enthusiasm which has set her city to 
 seeing and talking about birds and their needs, and the 
 benefits they are to society. She has set Defiance 
 County thirsting after this same knowledge. This 
 enthusiasm kept on swelling and surging until it broke 
 all barriers and is today a factor in the public school 
 system of the old Buckeye State. 
 
 Miss Sara V. Preuser began to study birds. Later 
 she began to write about these little feathered friends 
 for the school journals and educational magazines, 
 not only in Ohio but throughout the country. Farm 
 journals then published her stories and had her write 
 more and more. These big farm journals are edited 
 by keen business men who saw that while she was 
 teaching the children, by inference, the lessons of love, 
 kindness, thoughtfulness, industry, and frugality, she 
 was also teaching their parents the need of better pro- 
 tecting and preserving our bird life, so that we may reap 
 more bountiful harvests, and gather more luscious 
 fruits from vine and tree. 
 
 41 
 
It was only natural then that her writings should 
 become so generally helpful and interesting that people 
 began to ask her to gather them into a book. She finally 
 yielded to the call of the wild, and set to work writing 
 a book for the entertainment of boys and girls and for 
 the better conservation of our wealth as produced by 
 the farmers of this country. 
 
 She wrote and had published a beautiful volume, 
 entitled “(Our Dooryard Friends.”’ It seemed to meet 
 with unusual favor right from the start. Superintendent 
 of Schools E. W. Howey, of her own home city of De- 
 flance, was in trumental in so interesting the school 
 children and the people of Defiance in the contents of 
 that volume that it was not off the press many weeks 
 before they had actually purchased and were busy 
 reading and studying about “Our Dooryard Friends.”’ 
 This proved so constructive as a community venture 
 that it wasn’t long before its effects were noticeable 
 in the conduct of the boys and girls themselves.. Super- 
 intendent Howey said: ‘I doubt if you could find a 
 boy in Defiance who would throw a stone at a bird or 
 rob a nest, certainly not in the presence of any other 
 boy or girl, so great has been the effect of this book 
 upon our community.” This had actually added to 
 the community consciousness, for when two hundred 
 and sixty-five of these books were being read and caus- 
 ing the people to think in common the same line of . 
 thought and do it at practically the same time, there 
 was bound to be community action. That followed 
 of necessity. | 
 
 The Ohio State Teachers Reading Circle next adopted 
 this book as one of the supplementary readers for the 
 children of the sixth grade for all the public schools 
 in the state. It is being read all over Ohio right now. 
 It is sold through the schools by the Ohio Teachers 
 
 42 
 
Reading Circle, W. E. Kershner, Business Manager, 
 48 East Gay St., Columbus, Ohio, and this earnest, 
 conscientious teacher is now influencing her state. 
 The great naturalist, John Burroughs, in writing about 
 this book, said: ‘It is a very estimable piece of work 
 and ought to serve a very useful purpose!”” And it is 
 serving a useful purpose, for, as Mr. Frank Chapman, 
 Curator of the New York Museum of Natural History, 
 and Editor of that splendid magazine, “Bird Lore,” 
 
 Miss Sara V. Prueser, teacher, lover of nature, and author of 
 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS, searching for material for her 
 
 nature study stories. 
 43 
 
has observed: ‘‘This book, dealing with the birds of 
 our dooryards, is opening the gate which leads to the 
 larger joys of the fields and forests lying beyond!” 
 
 This book is reaching beyond the confines of Uncle 
 Sam’s domain, for the Agricultural Department of 
 Canada sent out not long ago an official bulletin to 
 fifty thousand farmers in which T. K. Doherty, LL. B., 
 who is an instructor in agriculture at the University 
 of Ottawa said: “ ‘Our Dooryard Friends’ is a very inter- 
 esting book which should create a desire for the preserva- 
 tion and protection of our feathered friends. The book 
 should be read especially by the boys and girls.”’ 
 
 A Lesson for Teachers. 
 
 The average county superintendent finds that about 
 one-third of his teaching force is made up of beginners 
 each year. If the teachers of our public schools could 
 but learn to see and do more for themselves, and to 
 teach less of what some textbook writer compiled from 
 other textbook compilers who wrote much about the 
 theory but knew little about the subject, there would 
 be more teachers like Miss Sara V. Preuser, who will be 
 teaching teachers long after she shall have been laid 
 to rest. She wrote of what she saw, of what she knew. 
 That is why her writings are influencing a continent. 
 
 One Ohio editor has said: ‘‘Priceless is such a book 
 as OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS for it is limitless 
 in its possibilities; it may do for the youth what the 
 long days of English country life and observation did 
 for Charles Darwin. He walked the woods with his 
 father. Stopped by every color, every movement, the 
 little fellow asked endless quéstions. In those long 
 walks and in his father’s patient answers lay the germ of 
 the master’s knowledge of science—that Pe paUUC ized 
 the thought of the world.” 
 
 a4 
 
Canaries and Mice. 
 
 It is only natural that we should be only novices 
 in this great war game. It is, however, to our eternal 
 credit that we are able to adjust ourselves to the changed 
 condition and the changed needs that war has brought 
 upon us. 
 
 One day not long ago the War Department received 
 a telegram from General Pershing, reading: 
 
 Send one thousand canaries and one thousand white mice. 
 
 The message was sent to the chief purchaser for the 
 expeditionary forces. He read the words and sent the 
 dispatch back to the Secretary of War with the request 
 that it be uncoded. The code room of the War Depart- 
 ment returned it with a note saying that it could not be 
 uncoded, that it was just a plain telegram. 
 
 The purchaser was baffled. He did not know whether 
 the telegram was a joke or an order, so he consulted a 
 former United States military attaché in France. 
 ~ “Do you suppose that General Pershing actually 
 wants white mice and canaries?’ he asked the captain, 
 handing him the cable. 
 
 ‘Yes, sir!’’ was the military reply. ‘White mice and 
 canaries are placed in the first-line trenches because they 
 can detect poisonous gases much quicker than the sol- 
 diers. When a soldier sees a canary bat its wings or a 
 white mouse trying to bury its nose he understands 
 that it is high time for him to put on his gas mask. 
 White mice and canaries have saved thousands of lives 
 in France, and we should supply our army immediately.” 
 
 A deaf and dumb person can hear it thunder and a 
 blind man can see the lightning during a storm, but it 
 takes a trained scientist to utilize the sensitive senses 
 of white mice and canary birds during a great conflict. 
 
 45 
 
BRONTE 
 
 The educated Scotch Collie, whom the famous naturalist, Ernest 
 Thompson Seton, said ‘‘Was the greatest object lesson for kindness 
 to animals which could be placed before a child.” 
 
 46 
 
The Story of Bronte. 
 
 The great things of life have been mostly achieved by 
 simple means. Franklin’s kite is typical of the labora- 
 tories of the great scientists. The world’s greatest teach- 
 ers have had neither colleges nor universities in which 
 to teach. The real problem is to get young folks to 
 make up their minds to do and to try to do. To see 
 what is needed to be done is three-fourths of any battle. 
 
 Yes, that all sounds well, says the young student. 
 But I haven’t the means with which to work. To all 
 who really want to see what can be done let us cite the 
 case of William A. McCormick and what his persistence 
 has accomplished. Assisted by his faithful collie dog, 
 Bronte, who accompanied him for twelve years, he 
 entertained and taught the school children in nearly 
 three thousand public schools, normals, colleges and 
 universities. 
 
 Who is William A. McCormick? He is a lyceum 
 and Chautauqua entertainer who has spent many 
 years upon the platform as a whistler and bird im- 
 itator. Heis student and lover of nature. He has 
 had the farsight to develop a fotm of entertainment 
 which was so laden with instruction and educational 
 inspiration that he spent years visiting and entertain- 
 ing in schools where the doors were closed to even 
 musicians, singers, concert companies, readers and lit- 
 erary entertainers and interpreters. With his ever 
 faithful Scotch Collie he had entrance into homes, 
 schools, churches and select gatherings of all kinds 
 where entertainment was on tap. 
 
 Bronte was a beautiful Scotch collie, and was, without 
 doubt, one of the most intelligent and kind-hearted 
 creatures ever born to grace the dog family and bring 
 pleasure into the lives of thousands and thousands of 
 children. 
 
 47 
 
Entertaining Children. 
 
 Bronte gave two hundred children’s Christmas enter- 
 tainments, mostly in the rich and fashionable homes in 
 Chicago or near the great windy city. She entertained 
 and was featured as the great attraction programmed 
 for the children on two hundred chautauquas scattered 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific. At some of these great 
 summer assemblies she entertained as many as ten and 
 fifteen thousand children and grown-up children at one 
 time. One chautauqua in Nebraska advertised free 
 admission to each child who attended Sunday school 
 anywhere within the county. At Wathena, Kans., the 
 chautauqua presented Bronte as the special attraction 
 for ‘‘Children’s Day,” offering free admission to each 
 school child in the county. There were three trains, 
 thirty-two coaches in all, loaded with excursionists, 
 bound for the chautauqua. The receipts for the adult 
 single admissions at the gate were $284.50, drawing 
 more people for Monday afternoon than the late Sam 
 Jones drew on the preceding Sunday. At Colfax, Iowa, 
 Bronte drew more people than ‘‘Billy’’ Sunday, the 
 famous evangelist, who was then Colte chautauqua 
 lecturing. 
 
 Bronte traveled all over this country as a lyceum 
 attraction. Was booked on five hundred lecture courses. 
 She traveled from Canada to southern Florida, and from 
 there to Vancouver. In all she traveled two hundred thou- 
 sand miles and was never in a baggage car. Her master 
 carried her in a basket or Japanese telescope, and when 
 once in the train no conductor who ever punched a 
 ticket had the heart to disturb her. 
 
 Bronte entertained perhaps a million school children 
 in the state of Illinois, so that there were at one time more 
 dogs named Bronte in this state than any other name, 
 with the possible exception of ‘“Teddy.”, The Rough 
 
 48 
 
Rider President was held in high esteem by children, 
 who honored the idol of their hearts by naming their 
 dogs in his honor. Such big city schools as the Wendell 
 Phillips High, Chicago, were thrown open to Bronte, who 
 year after year visited them to the great delight of the 
 children and to the profit of the school and the moral 
 betterment of the community. 
 
 Superintendent William Wirt of Gary, Ind., said, 
 “Bronte gave a most wonderful exhibition. The respect | 
 and love for animals encouraged by this entertainment 
 is the best thing we have had in our school experience.”’ 
 And hundreds of schools, normals, colleges, and chau- 
 tauqua promoters were as pronounced in their views as 
 to what this collie had accomplished as was Superin- 
 tendent Wirt. What effect did this have on the lives 
 of the children? It taught them to be kind to birds and 
 animals. It taught them to feel and to realize that 
 even the birds and beasts have the same sense of pain 
 that we have. It made them kind to each other, and 
 helped to make them better men and better women. 
 
 But did it pay? Well, McCormick traveled all over 
 this country with that dog, giving entertainments for 
 the chautauqua and lyceum patrons, besides doing his 
 phenomenal school work where the children were en- 
 tertained and taught, and when on December 12, 
 1916, Bronte died of old age it was found that she 
 had built four beautiful summer cottages with her earn- 
 ings. These cottages are at Onekama, Mich., and are 
 a monument to a noble animal who lived to make our 
 children happy and our country better. 
 
 Entertainment in the School. 
 
 Early in his life Mr. McCormick saw that there was 
 very little in the way of real entertainment provided 
 for children in the public schools, and that to suggest 
 to school directors that a part of the school money, 
 
 49 
 
raised by taxes, might well be spent for entertainment 
 for the children would be the highest act of folly that 
 one could commit. So he set to work to provide some 
 real entertainment in which he coupled so much instruc- 
 tion that it was not long before the wide-awake teachers 
 were teaching through his entertainment. He taught 
 the children such invaluable lessons as how to get ac- 
 quainted with wild birds, how to build bird houses that 
 will attract birds to build their nests in them, and why 
 birds should be fed in the winter time. He taught the 
 children how to study nature round about them. He 
 has pointed to the fact that Germany excelled in the 
 manufacture of dyestuff because the German chemists 
 patterned their formulas after nature, citing as an ex- 
 ample the manufacture of indelible ink, which they 
 learned from the cuttlefish, whose inky fluid has power 
 to so darken the waters of the sea that its enemies are 
 lost in the flood of bewildering darkness when they 
 attempt to disturb it. Hundreds of such lessons have 
 been taught by this observing student of nature, and his 
 enthusiasm has been passed on to the children who in 
 turn have carried it home to their parents. 
 
 In short the schoolroom has been turned into a forest 
 of beauty where nature ran riot, and even the teachers 
 were taught, and the parents were enticed into the school- 
 room, where they heard echoes of the forest which 
 carried them back in memory to the happy springtime 
 of their lives when they roamed the woods hunting the 
 early arbutus, and listened to the love calls of mating 
 birds. The plaintive notes of the whippoorwill only 
 enticed them further into the forest of memory, where 
 they listened again to birds of every color and from 
 every clime, as this master whistler warbled his wild- 
 wood freedom from the platform, and all nature was 
 brought into the schoolroom in the guise of an enter- 
 
 50 
 
tainment, and the children were taught how to learn from 
 the greatest of all teachers, Nature. 
 
 What is Mr. McCormick doing now that Bronte is 
 dead? He is still entertaining the schools with his 
 whistling and bird imitations. He is now telling the 
 same audiences, where he has visited from year to year 
 for twelve years, the story of Bronte’s life, and the 
 eager, expectant faces of the children as they sit with 
 bated breath listening long after school hours to the 
 fascinating stories about birds and animals, and the 
 almost personal interest in the story of Bronte and her 
 years of service show that there is.a great field for such . 
 effort. 
 
 Neltje Blanchan, author of “Bird Neighbors,” setting 
 forth what nature study means to children, has said: 
 “Nature is the best teacher of us all, trains the child’s 
 eyes through study of the birds to quickness and pre- 
 cision, which are the first requisites for all intelligent 
 observation in every field of knowledge.” 
 
 Starting the Child Right. 
 
 Arthur Bisbane has for years been said to be paid 
 $75,000 a year salary as editor of the great chain of 
 Hearst papers. What Mr. Brisbane says ought to be 
 given great consideration. Ina recent editorial he made 
 this appeal: 
 
 “Young people, start now to use your brains. Take 
 nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon 
 stays in her appointed place or that the poor starve and 
 freeze amid plenty. 
 
 “Think of the things which are wrong and of the possi- 
 bilities of righting them. Study your own weaknesses 
 and your imperfections. There is power in your brain 
 to correct them if you will develop that power.”’ 
 
 51 
 
Dogs and the War. 
 
 The following facts were taken from a long article 
 published in The London, England, Times, and shows 
 the part that dogs played in winning the great war for 
 human and world freedom. 
 
 For more than two years dogs were officially used in 
 the war. In the early months of 1917 a War Dog School 
 of Instruction was formed by the War Office, and Lieut.- 
 Col. Richardson, who has devoted his life to training 
 dogs for military and police purposes, was appointed 
 commandant. It is an interesting fact, and not without 
 a certain pathos, that many a brave soldier owes his 
 life to some poor, uncared-for, stray dog. 
 
 It is only fitting that we should know that our dogs 
 have been the means of saving countless lives and much 
 valuable property, and have also been instrumental in 
 materially substituting for man-power at a time when 
 this was all-important. 
 
 The skill, courage and tenacity of these dogs have 
 been amazing. During heavy barrages, when all other 
 communications have been cut, the messenger dogs 
 have made their way, and in many cases have brought 
 messages of vital import. Sometimes they have been 
 wounded in the performance of their duties, and there 
 is a wonderful record of the determination with which 
 wounded dogs have persisted in their duty. In the 
 same way the record continues of successful message- 
 carrying through darkness, mist, rain and shell-fire, and 
 over every sort of difficult ground. Many a time has 
 a dog brought a message in a few minutes over ground 
 that would take a runner hours to cross. 
 
 In the last great German assault our line was cut off 
 by severe enemy barrage. A messenger dog was re- 
 leased with an urgent appeal for reinforcements. It ran 
 214 miles in 10 minutes. A French colonial divi- 
 
 52 
 
sion was sent up and saved the situation, otherwise 
 there would have been a terrible disaster. On many 
 other occasions messenger dogs were taken up with 
 our assaulting troops and carried back details of the 
 captured positions to brigade headquarters, whereby 
 the state of affairs was accurately gauged and acted 
 upon without delay. On one of these occasions a dog 
 ran five miles in 20 minutes, while in another case a dog 
 carried back a map of an important position in 20 
 minutes when a man would have taken an hour and a 
 half to bring it in. In positions where runners have been 
 unable to move at all messenger dogs have carried out 
 their mission faultlessly. The breeds that have given 
 the best results for this work have been collies, sheep 
 dogs, lurchers and Airedales, and crosses of these varie- 
 ties, while in several cases Welsh and Irish terriers of 
 the large type have given excellent results. 
 
 The dogs all loved their work. They had ideal train- 
 ing grounds. Unvarying kindness and devoted service 
 governed their management and that is why they gave 
 such splendid service to the great cause of world better- 
 ment. 
 
 World’s Champion Hunter. 
 
 When William Hohenzollern was a little boy he was 
 given battle ships, guns and cannons as toys. His very 
 play taught him how to take life. In spite of the fact 
 that he had a withered arm he was taught to shoot 
 to kill. At the time the once mighty Kaiser abdicated 
 his throne and fled from his own army he boasted that 
 he was the champion hunter of the world, claiming to 
 have killed 61,730 pieces of game, more than 4,000 of 
 which were stags. From shooting birds and animals 
 as a boy to starting a world war in which it is estimated 
 that already 25,000,000 lives were taken, was a very 
 natural step. 
 
 53 
 
The Kaiser wasn’t even a sportsman. He didn’t 
 hunt but sat down in a secluded spot and had his hounds 
 and his paid murderers chase the game past him that 
 he might kill for the fun of killing. Is it any wonder that 
 William, Hohenzollern, German Emperor and Kaiser 
 for the Prussians, became the champion butcher of all 
 the ages? Nero looks tame along side of the Kaiser. 
 
 Why was the Kaiser a vain conceited monomaniac? 
 It was the system of government under which he was 
 born and raised that made him what he was. It was 
 not heredity but environment. He talked about being 
 the instrument of the Almighty until he believed that 
 he was different from other people. In a proclamation 
 to his army he said: ‘Woe and death to all those who 
 shall oppose my will.’’ In addressing his soldiers he 
 said: ‘““You owe absolute obedience to me. If I should 
 command you to fire upon your own brothers and sis- 
 ters, mothers and fathers, you must remember that it 
 is your sworn duty to obey my orders. My will is su- 
 preme.”’ | 
 
 This was the same Kaiser who wrote to a mother 
 who had lost nine sons in the war and said that he was 
 “Delighted” and sent her one of his autographed photo- 
 graphs. ey 
 
 Did you ever read the tender hearted letter that 
 Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother who had lost 
 three sons in the war for the Union? | 
 
 Our Great Democrat. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was born in poverty, he struggled 
 against adversity, underwent hardships and lived close 
 to nature. It is said that once, as he was riding along 
 the road on his way to attend a lawsuit, seeing a little 
 bird that had fallen out of its nest and lay almost dead 
 on the ground, he got off his horse and tenderly lifted 
 the little creature back to its tiny home in the tree and 
 
 54 
 
then rode on his way feeling that he had but done his 
 duty to one of God’s creatures. It was such training 
 as that which fitted Abraham Lincoln for the wonder- 
 ful part which he was to play in the world’s history. 
 
 If the command still holds good that we shall judge, 
 as of old, then we can contrast the Kaiser, the auto- 
 crat, with Lincoln, the great democrat. Surely we can 
 say that it is better to make friends and companions 
 with even the birds of the air and the beasts of the for- 
 est than to ruthlessly slaughter life in any form. This 
 law still holds good: ‘‘Whatsoever ye sow that. shall 
 ye also reap.” 
 
 Why We Have Pets. 
 
 Observation has taught us that in those parts of even 
 America where bird and animal life is held cheapest 
 there also is human life of less value than property 
 rights. People who are not kind to dogs and horses 
 are not kind to each other. 
 
 The writer has spent hours and hours in the Atlantic 
 and Pacific Bird Store, 327 W. Madison St., Chicago, 
 studying, not only the birds and pets which are for sale 
 in that store, perhaps the greatest pet shop in the world, 
 but also the people who deal in that line of strange 
 business. The women who buy canary birds, parrots 
 and other pets with the idea of giving them a place 
 in their own heart and life are the ones who have the 
 mother instinct large in their makeup. Girls who are 
 true to a canary bird are generally speaking the kind 
 who will be true to a good husband. The girl who buys 
 a parrot to have something to entertain her usually is 
 looking for a husband for the same purpose. Real men 
 have something else to do in life and that is one cause 
 of many unhappy homes. The same is as true of the men 
 as it is of the women. A boy, who isn’t big enough and 
 doesn’t know enough to get more pleasure from mak- 
 
 55 
 
ing a robin or a squirrel, a friend, by winning his confi- 
 dence, than by cruelly penning him in a cage, hasn’t 
 learned very much about how to get real pleasure from 
 life. A boy who has to pen his little friends in a cage 
 or tie them to a post is the type who, if not developed 
 more humanely will eventually find his life work as a 
 slave driver over a gang of ditch diggers or some other 
 such work. The finer senses are developed by help- 
 ing others. 
 
 American Dolls. 
 
 Our own Chicago is fast becoming the leading Ameri- 
 can center where the children are being led into high- 
 er, nobler realms of living through the influence of our 
 toy makers and the unbelievable number of directors 
 of play and juvenile activity who are annually sent 
 out from this city. In fact this is the training camp 
 for child workers and thousands of American com- 
 munities have felt the influence of these leaders. 
 
 Already there is a great advance made in the doll 
 line and America is growing rapidly as a doll producing 
 nation. Among the new ideas promulgated by the 
 manufacturers of this line in Mrs. Jessie McCutcheon 
 Raleigh, sister of the famous McCutcheon brothers, 
 John, the cartoonist; George Barr, novelist, and Ben, 
 the editorial writer. 
 
 Mrs. Raleigh has entered the doll industry with a 
 high artistic purpose. She believes there is a wonderful 
 opportunity to add to the delights of American child- 
 hood by the creation of dolls which are expressive of 
 the child spirit of this country, and are the embodi- 
 ment of the childish graces peculiarly American. She 
 believes that American children are the most lovely 
 
 56 
 
Mrs. Jessie McCutcheon Raleigh and Some of Her Lovely Children. 
 All Are Really Dolls. They All but Talk. Each,One Has 
 Been Patterned After an American Youth. 
 
 57 
 
things in the world, distinguished by a beauty and 
 spirituelle of face and form Bes SEPEHOE breeding 
 has bequeathed. 
 
 The Raleigh dolls are all hand painted and sculptured 
 from real life, each one representing some child that 
 posed for it. They have unusually lifelike expressions 
 
 -.and-are: named for what they suggest... They are light 
 
 in weight and unbreakable and made so that the arms 
 .and legs can be turned and. fixed in any Way. so as to 
 give them a more lifelike appearance. 
 
 America is destined to supersede Germany by win- 
 ning the little mothers’ hearts through the newer and 
 nobler and more humanly natural dolls, which are fast 
 - taking the place once held by the “Made in Germany’”’ 
 toys. 
 
 Inspiring Children. 
 
 At Eyanston, Ill., the city graded schools Neel 1,500 
 of. these booklets as a sort of supplimentary reader and 
 other schools have used from 500 to 1,000 of them for 
 the same purpose. Those who have the future welfare 
 of the youth of our country at heart realize that the 
 way to develop the future citizenship to ways of better 
 living, to better methods of doing business, is to teach 
 them the great universal laws which underlie all life. 
 
 What would the church have been if it were not for 
 the Sunday school as a feeder? A wise banker recently 
 said: ‘‘Give me the children who deposit their pennies 
 today and I will have THE big builders, borrowers and 
 patrons of tomorrow.’ 
 
 There is a greater future for this line of activity tHe 
 has ever been realized even by its own best friends. 
 Commercial interests should study the possibilities 
 of the future in this plan of organizing the play of young 
 America. 
 
 58 
 
President Wilsog, Sees Our Gains. 
 
 There is no one better able to speak words of encour- 
 agement to us at this time, nor is there anyone among 
 us better qualified to extract the valuable lessons which 
 this great world war is teaching, than is the far-sighted 
 man who has carried the burdens of the nation through 
 sO many months and years of the worst strife and the 
 bloodiest conflict that the world has ever witnessed. 
 What then does President Woodrow Wilson say? Read 
 well his words: 
 
 I suppoge not many fortunate by-products 
 can come out of a war, but if this country can 
 learn something about saving out of the war, it , 
 will be worth the cost of the war; I mean the 
 literal cost of it, in money and resources. I 
 suppose we have several times overwasted more 
 than we are now able to spend. We have not 
 known that there was any limit to our resources; 
 we are now finding out that there may be if we 
 are not careful. 
 
 What Other Great Presidents Have Said. 
 
 The beloved martyred President, William E. Mc- 
 Kinley, was a staunch believer in the youth of America. 
 He mingled with sages and statesmen, but that never 
 blinded him to the fact that young America must ever 
 be the real constructive force; it must furnish the phy- 
 sical energy to dare and todo. Yes, even the children 
 in the American homes were the object of his untiring 
 solicitation. He said: ‘The little savings bank in 
 the home means more for the future of the children of 
 a family, almost, than all of the advice in the world. 
 It gives them the right start.”” Yes, the very protective 
 tariff, which furnished ammunition for more than a 
 hundred years of political strife and acrimonious debate, 
 took a back seat, even in the mind of its greatest cham- 
 
 59 
 
pion, when it ran up against the toy bank in the home. 
 
 Years ago our great President, Abraham Lincoln, 
 in one of his speeches, said: ‘‘Teach economy; that is 
 one of the first virtues. It begins with the saving of 
 money.’ But even before that Andrew Jackson, the 
 great fighting President, had given the youth of Amer- 
 ica this advice: ‘Save your money and thrive, or pay 
 the price.in poverty and disgrace.’’ In fact our very 
 birth as a nation seemed to teach the lesson of thrift. 
 Our own immortal George Washington, the ‘Father 
 of our Country,” tried to start the young republic off 
 right, for he said: ‘‘Economy makes happy homes and 
 sound nations; instill it deep.”” Then came Thomas 
 Jefferson, who wrote the immortal Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, who in the maturity of his life of usefulness 
 sent a letter to a young man who had just been elected 
 president of one of the great colleges of Virginia, in 
 which he said, “Save and teach all you are interested 
 in to save; thus pave the way for moral and material 
 success.’’ Coming back to our time;*few Presidents 
 have had more to do with shaping the destiny of this 
 country than had the great Rough Rider, Theodore 
 Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt was the father of the conserva- 
 tion movement which saved millions of acres of forest 
 lands from despoliation. He built great dams and 
 reservoirs which have irrigated millions of acres of desert 
 land and made them to blossom like the rose. What, 
 then, had he to say on this subject? ‘‘Extravagance rots 
 character; train the youth away from it. On the other 
 hand, the habit of saving money, while it stiffens the 
 will, also brightens the energies. If you would be sure 
 that you are beginning right, begin to save money.” 
 
 While President, Mr. Roosevelt did more for the pres- 
 ervation of bird and animal life than any other Presi- 
 dent ever did. He set aside great areas as bird sanctu- 
 
 60 
 
aries and bird reservations, where they might not only 
 breed in peace but live under the protecting arm of 
 Uncle Sam himself. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt never lost his interest in life about him 
 and the very last book that he read just before he died 
 was a volume of 250,000 words written by William 
 Beebe of the New York Zoological Park. 
 
 What Great Statesmen Have Said. 
 
 William E. Gladstone, preeminent among men, 
 statesmen, and scholars, said: ‘‘Economy is near the 
 keystone of character and success. A boy that is taught 
 to save his money will rarely be a bad man or a failure; 
 the man who saves will rise in his trade or profession 
 steadily; this is inevitable.”’ No man has done more 
 to influence the youth of America along the line of thrift 
 and economy than the great demonstrator of the fact 
 that lightning is electricity and can be handled and 
 made to serve all the wants of a civilized people. Frank- 
 lin’s ‘“‘Autobiography” is even today a great factor in 
 molding the character of the youth of America. What 
 he had to say to one of his young apprentices has a 
 direct appeal to every youth.in the land today, and 
 should be taken home as a personal admonition: ‘“‘Save, 
 young man, become respectable and respected; it’s 
 the quickest and surest way.’’ Henry Clay was one 
 of the great statesmen of our country, and his admoni- 
 tions are as live and vital today as they were when 
 given. In addressing an audience of his constituents 
 he made this personal appeal: ‘‘Men of the South, 
 save. We must learn this lesson, for that economy 
 which so stiffens the North and stimulates its indus- 
 tries will do the same for us, making our progress sound 
 -and sure.” 
 
 61 
 
What the World’s Greatest Merchants Say. 
 
 John Wanamaker and Marshall Field immediately 
 come to mind when we think of great merchants. It is 
 then only natural that we should consult them if we 
 would learn the secret of success as they found it. Mr. 
 Wanamaker has repeatedly said: ‘‘The difference 
 between the clerk who spends all his salary and a clerk 
 who saves a part of it is the difference—in ten years— 
 between the owner of a business and the man out of a 
 job.” 
 
 Marshall Field’s Analysis. 
 
 If you want to succeed, save. This is true, not only because 
 of the value of the money which the young man who saves 
 accumulates, but because of the infinitely greater value of the 
 system and organization which the practice of saving introduces 
 into his life. This result of the saving habit is not generally 
 nor properly appreciated. I consider it to be almost the great- 
 est element in making for a young man’s success. In the first 
 place, thrift creates determination in all who practice it; this at 
 the start. Then it develops steady purpose; then sustained 
 energy. Soon it produces alert, discriminating intelligence. 
 These all rapidly grow into an ability that enables the saver to 
 take the money he has accumulated (even though small in 
 amount) and employ it with profit. Better and better returns 
 follow upon his industry, ability, and judgment and to his cap- 
 ital—now steadily increasing. Soon he is secure—and that 
 comparatively early in life; and each day widens the gulf be- 
 tween him and improvidence and its invariable companion, 
 incompetence. This is the real framework of the structure of 
 success. Each of its supports, it will be invariably found, 
 rests upon a foundation stone of an early dollar saved. 
 
 The Culmination. 
 
 The doctrine of saving and economizing, learning 
 the blessing that the habit of thrift bestows upon those - 
 who practice it, has now become a great national 
 problem. Yes, it is international. Every country 
 in the civilized world is either directly or indirectly 
 
 62 
 
teaching its citizens how to better conserve nature’s 
 blessing and to extract more and more from the works 
 of man. It is already estimated that 30,000,000 of 
 our citizens have invested in Thrift Savings. Great 
 Britain and Canada are also using the Thrift Stamp 
 as a means of financing the war and enlisting the people’s 
 hearty support in the cause for which we fought. 
 
 Money and the War. 
 
 When Uncle Sam needed money, and needed it in a 
 hurry, where did he go to get it? The Liberty Loans 
 showed that the people not only were ready, but willing 
 to finance this great venture. What have already been 
 the results of the efforts to have the people finance the 
 war? It has given strength and unanimity to the Na- 
 tional Government itself. That appeal has gone even 
 to the children.: 
 
 The Power of Money Saved. 
 
 Half a dozen nail makers, who had saved a little 
 of the money that they earned, determined to go into 
 business for themselves. They did. The company the 
 nail makers started is a $25,000,000 corporation today 
 and is known as the La Belle Iron Company of Steuben- 
 ville, Ohio. 
 
 Twenty-eight poor weavers of Great Britain, with a 
 total capital of $140, started a cooperative store. Today 
 that store has grown into the Cooperative Society of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, which has 3,500,000 members 
 and a capital stock of $250,000,000. 
 
 Food Won the War. 
 
 ‘We secured the allegiance to this national service 
 in our 20,000,000 kitchens, our 20,000,000 breakfast, 
 lunch, and dinner tables; we multiplied an ounce of 
 sugar, or fats, or what not per day by 100,000,000 peo- 
 
 63 
 
ple, we saved 180,000,000 pounds in a month. We 
 saved a pound of flour per week, we saved 125,000,- 
 000 bushels of wheat per annum. It was this multiplica- 
 tion of minute quantities—teaspoons full—slices, scraps 
 —by 100,000,000 and 365 days that saved the world. 
 Is not our right to life and freedom worth that service?” 
 
 “There are other features of food conservation of 
 national importance. One of them lies in the whole 
 problem of national saving. Wars are paid for out of 
 the savings of a people. However we meet that expendi- 
 ture it will have to be paid for some day from our sav- 
 ings. The savings of a people lie in the conservation 
 of commodities and the savings of productive labor. 
 When we reduced the consumption of the necessary 
 commodities in this country to a point where our la- 
 borers turned to the production of war materials; when 
 we secured that balance and got to the point where 
 we freed our men for the Army, then it was that we 
 solved one of the most important economic problems 
 of the war. 7 
 
 The Final Goal. 
 
 Scientists have for centuries observed that there are 
 two forces struggling for the possession of the earth. 
 One of these great contending armies is headed, 
 marshalled, and recruited by man; the enemy is made 
 up of millions, yea, ten billion trillion armies of insects, 
 bugs, germs, and microbes, with gnats, fleas, flies, and 
 all the trained aviators that harrass us from the heavens 
 above, while the seas are teeming with submarine 
 enemies more wonderfully made than was ever dreamed 
 possible by the ingenuity of man. It’s the human 
 race against the world of living things about us, and in 
 this conflict all agree that if it were not for our little 
 feathered friends the conflict would be over in fifteen 
 years and the human race would be extinct. 
 
 64 
 
Close to Nature 
 
 Through the meadows green I wander, 
 Mid the clover, pink and white, 
 On the hillside over yonder, 
 ‘Til my soul's filled with delight. 
 And I hear a song-bird singing, 
 Perched upon some golden-rod— 
 When a fellow’s close to Nature, 
 He's not far away from God. 
 
 Where the honey bees are sipping 
 From the blossoms on the stem, 
 And the mocking birds are trilling, 
 Far from the haunts of men, 
 I can hear all Nature calling 
 Where the wild flowers bend and nod 
 If a fellow's close to Nature, 
 He's not far away from God. 
 
 I can sit just sort of dreaming, 
 While I listen to the trees, 
 
 With their foliage all a-gleaming, 
 As it flutters in the breeze. 
 
 Where the sunlight and the shadows 
 Are all mingled o'er the sod— 
 
 When a fellow’'s close to Nature, 
 He's not far away from God. 
 
 I can hear the reapers rattle 
 In the far-off fields of grain, 
 And the lowing of the cattle, 
 Wending homeward through the lane. 
 All these scenes and sounds remind me 
 Of this saying, true but odd, 
 When a fellow’s close to Nature, 
 He's not far away from God. 
 
 —TOM J. NICHOLL. 
 
3 0112 072765818 
 
 Life’s Balance Sheet 
 
 Statistics show that out of each 
 100 young men twenty-five years old, 
 fifty-four will be dependent upon 
 friends, relatives or charity at sixty- 
 five years of age. 
 
 36 will have died 
 
 Of 1 will be rich 
 
 the. | 4 will be wealthy 
 100 | 5 will be supporting them- 
 
 selves by work 
 54 will be dependent 
 
 Nature is our greatest teacher and experience 
 is a close second. If we can’t learn from these 
 two masters we must paya dear price for our 
 stupidity.