lantic three times before it reached England. It was early brought into Mexico then across to Spain by the early explorers, by Cortez after his conquest, back again to Georgia and later across to England by Sir Walter Raleigh and thence into Ireland. A much traveled vegetable this, yet would I venture to guess you do not even know what part of the plant you are eating. Is it root, stem, seed or what? And why, since it is a native of South America, do we call it Irish? And what other relative of these two distinguished members of our household have I now at home ready to be sliced, dipped and fried for my own dinner? It is beautifully purple. Have you guessed it? And the oranges we eat: where did they originally come from? and how do we get Mediterranean sweets, navels and bloods? Where does the banana come from? Do they have flowers to make their fruits and where are the seeds kept? Why do we say our geranium, or pelargonium really, is related to the golden nasturtium which will soon be blossoming in our gardens? Nasturtium is not a very good name either for it was given by the earliest discoverers of this plant far away in Africa merely because it bit their tongues as the water cress had done at home. Therefore the two, to these simple souls, must be related. Water cress really belongs to the mustards as do the radishes, cabbages and many other vegetables. By the way do you know the old superstition about the radish? If you will wear a wreath of purple radish blossoms on your head you will never be annoyed by evil spirits or witches weaving spells about you or glaring at you with an evil eye. To go back to our nasturtium, or tropiolum, meaning a pile of trophies which is a better name for them. If you look back to the Roman hordes returning from battle and think of the pile of shields and helmets in the market place or forum you will recognize the reason for the name tropiolum. Remember this when you look at your plants with their leaves so like round shining shields and the gay little helmet-shaped blossoms.

And why should we fail to recall, as we find our first Jack-in-the-pulpit, that here we are fortunate in having the northern-most adventurers of a very distinguished family whose members spread far over the world? Though Jack is often diminutive in our cooler north, his tropical relatives are lusty fellows. The taro plants of the Pacific islands supply the natives with food as do the elephant ear and dasheen. You may remember the great expectations we had a few years

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ago of the dasheen supplementing the potato crop. The calla lily is another well known relative of Jack's though of course it isn't a lily at all. I wonder if you have seen the white pollen clinging to the yellow spike of stamens and looked deep in the calla's cup to find the pistils and the seeds. The white sheath is not at all like petals. It is a spathe. Tulips are gorgeous now-no wonder the pixies put their babies in them to be cradled by the wind. Of course, it is the fairies who gave them their dainty colors and sweet odor.

Now I have told you some stories just to stir your curiosity about some familiar objects. Let us see how keen your eyes are and what ears are for. Will you take your pencil and jot down the answers to these questions? Try yourself out? Let's have a little game and see who wins. We test the children to see how wise they are; let's test ourselves for fun.

1. What native bush is now a mass of golden blossoms? Another beside the forsythia, as it is not a native.

2. What butterfly is coming from its winter hiding place with under wings mottled like the charred wood against which it is resting?

3. What bird is carrying mud to build his best foundations?

4. What call note are we hearing from our familiar little chickadee?

5. What part of the plant am I eating as I nibble at a clove?

6. How many eyelids on each eye has my pet cat? Some say one, two?

7. What secret does the willow hold-on one bush I find all gold dusted pussies; on another all are rough and green?

8. A spider just ran across the reading stand and dropped on her web to the floor; did she go down head first or body first?

9. Where does the web come from?

10. The high holes, or yellow hammers, are calling across the fields real spring messages to their mates. They are woodpeckers, of course, but how have they broken the family traditions in their dining habits? Look at their toes.

Well, what is your nature I Q? and do I hear you saying, "Ask me another"? To understand what you see in nature is indeed to gain one of the greatest resources of life.

Start your "Signs of Spring" calendar at once. Will you write me some of the charming things you add to it? Why not inaugurate a nature week (Concluded on page 56)

By

The Second Church in Boston (1649), Puritan in tradition, is today courting beauty and reviving customs which stern Cotton Mather, one of its early ministers, would have condemned as pagan. May Day has now for some years been celebrated with seasonable rites, the minister of the church. bringing to his work some of the spirit of the Playground and Recreation Association with which he became acquainted when he was with War Camp Community Service.

Last year the festival was somewhat elaborated. At seven o'clock the neighborhood was aroused with a fanfare of trumpets, followed by the Oxford May Day hymn, Te Deum Patrem Colinuus, Gounod's Domine, Salvam Fac, and the old English glee, "My Love's Like a Red, Red Rose," sung by a choir of mixed voices on the steps of the church. A parish breakfast was then served, some of the guests coming miles for the event. At eight o'clock the poetry tournament was announced, a trumpeter summoning the company. The stage curtains drawn, behold the May Queen on a scarlet throne, holding court! She, Miss Elizabeth Wright of Brookline, looking the part, attired in white, with pink roses in her lap, is attended by lovely ladies-in-waiting in salmon pink and apple green, carrying branches of forsythia. Graciously the Queen welcomes the brave matutinal gathering. Forthwith a page announces three poets in the courtyard without, desiring to pay homage. In medieval gowns of blue and crimson they appear and are greeted, the one whose poem meets with most favor being promised a golden rose.

To assist the Queen in bestowing the award, three judges are called in consultation,-Professor Bliss Perry of Harvard, Professor Chauncey Brewster Tinker of Yale, and Miss Abbie Farwell Brown, President of the New England Poetry Club. Miss Brown, the spokesman for these, in scarlet robe and hood, sits at the Queen's right.

Now for the joust!

Judith Claire Stern of Wellesley College re

cites a March Song; Rosalie D. Hickler recites a May Song, written while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan; and Robert Taylor of Harvard, appearing for Marshall W. Schacht of Dartmouth, reads a Song for a May Dance. (The three poems had previously been selected from the nineteen submitted.) The Queen impartially crowns each with a garland, turning in her perplexity to the judge for a verdict, "when all are so worthy." Meanwhile, Professor Earl Marlatt of Boston University, who last year in a similar tournament had won the golden rose, the artistic work of a French jeweler, delivers the prize with fitting words into the hands of Arthur L. Williston, presiding over the festival. Miss Brown then announces the decision of the judges. The page brings the golden rose on a cushion and amid applause Marshall W. Schacht, in absentia, is awarded the prize, his deputy on bended knee accepting it.

The tournament, thus successfully held, calling forth nineteen original poems from undergraduates in various colleges, introduces to America a fourteenth century French custom perpetuated in the Jeux Floreaux of literary France, the committee in charge feeling that a festival so blithe is worthy of a place in the calendar of Puritan New England and that the attempt to restore romance to May Day may appeal to all who, in the words of an old writer, aim "to live with joy and mirth, fleeing ennui and sadness, enemies of the Gay Science" (poetry).

A slave of routine is limited to his round of knowledge; the men who make the life of the world, are those who have the courage to believe more than they know and the conscience to test their beliefs in the spirit of truth. You will find these men in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, you will find them in Plutarch's Lives, you will find them all down through the history of modern science and inventions, you will find them all about us today in the everyday walks of life.

CHANCELLOR ELMER ELLSWORTH BROWN

The telephone rang. A friend invited me to come over to his camp and say something to his boys. As I put on my hat, Rex, by leaping upon me and by racing back and forth, made it known in his own way that he, too, wanted to join the party. When I asked him the unnecessary question as to whether he wished to go out for a walk, he responded by an affirmative bark, and by a vigorous tail-wagging.

No sooner were we out of doors than he began to nip the back of my ankles-first the one and then the other. I could feel the sharpness of his teeth, but never too hard. I kicked at him without meaning to reach him. He and I had a mutual understanding about that. This is one of our little games. We often play it when we start on a hike, but never when we are "dragging in." In a few minutes we were at the camp. I was surprised to observe how many of the fellows knew Rex by name. I began: "Rex has certain games that he likes better than others. When I left my tent, he started to play one of his oldtime games called 'Nipping the Ankles.' His ancestors used to engage in the same sport. 'With whom? When? And why?' do you ask? You know that they played it in running down at hoofed animal. When his quarry became exhausted, the dog's great-great-grandfather (a wolf) sprang at his throat. Even today a shepherd dog follows the same method in driving cattle. Did you ever note how careful the shepherd dog is in approaching cattle when they are in standing position? He must be on his guard, for he knows that they are then in the right balance to administer a hard kick to him.

"I have just hinted that his fourteenth greatgrandfather was a wolf. Your fourteenth greatgrandfather lived in the woods, too. What every one of us is, is due to heredity or education. His ancestors did not bite my ankles but those of the reindeer, moose, and caribou. They did it to run

*Reprinted, with some additions, through the courtesy of Camps and Camping, 1927, of the Spalding's Athletic Library.

the animal down or to cut a tendon, called hamstring. I find that boys and western girls know the term. This may be due to the stories they read. Now Rex did not hamstring me. He did not intend to because we belong to the same pack. His grandsire belonged to a pack. The puppies of the same pack will bite each other, wrestle, and snarl but they will not hamstring or vitally injure one another. All fur bearing animals get their education, in part, by these lessons. I saw a mother skunk with her two skunkies the other night. The skunkies were biting, wrestling and squealing, but they did not spray each other. If I had just patted one in a friendly way he would have promptly disinfected me. Rex and I will now try a little rough house. You watch him closely and see the positions he takes. Remember all the time that his grandfather was a wolf and that we belong to the same pack.

"Just as Rex prefers certain pastimes," I continued, "so you boys have your favorite games. What are they?"

"Hunting," shouted back a little chap sitting crossed-legged in the front row. "Trailing," "Capture the Flag," "Hare and Hound," responded others.

"Rex has shown certain impulses for education. These impulses are deep-rooted, and probably guide puppy education ever since a pup was destined to grow into a dog. The game of Tag was the earliest one that Rex ever played. He enjoys chasing and being chased. He inherited this educational impulse from the time when the very earliest one-celled animal started in search of its first bit of food. The dog spies a rabbit. The rabbit excites the dog's stomach—and much more; every nerve and every muscle in the dog's body. The muscles set his blood a-tingling; the respiratory organs join the party. The whole dog is after the rabbit. Such a reaction is as old as life itself. And the same system of natural growth is at work in the education of the camper, but to the nth power of complexity.

"The chase was the way Rex's great-greatgrandsire had of getting food. Hence Rex still has the impulse to pursue anything that will run -whether it be a ball, another dog, or children. A cat in motion is the best yet. Watch him when

ball and press it against my knee, as though saying, 'Please hide it that I may go and hunt for it.' Plainly, it is not the ball that he wants; it is the activity of hunting for it that he enjoys. I cover his eyes with my hands and quietly toss the ball to a friend to hide. If my friend clumsily makes a noise, Rex will locate the ball by his keen sense of hearing; otherwise, you will note how he sniffs the air, thus trying to locate it by his sense of smell.

"But observe how differently Rex conducts himself when he wants to play the game of running after the ball. He then brings it and drops it at my feet. If I ignore him, he repeats the process. Now I throw it. He is after his quarry instantly. He pounces on it, grabs it up or holds it down with his paw, depending upon the nature of the make-believe animal that he imagines he has captured.

"Thus does Nature demand that he educate his eyes, his ears, his leg muscles, his lungs, his teeth, his complete self. If he is going to develop into a whole dog, he cannot omit any of these exercises. His inner nature calls for hunting, chasing, pouncing, and holding. His ancestors played in the same way. These games are traditional in the puppy school. And there is an equal demand for them at camp; for, historically, boy nature in many respects resembles dog nature. If you fellows do not play these games under proper supervision, then you begin to hide your bunk

mate's cap, or run away with his tennis racket, jump unexpectedly on your neighbor's back, use the half-nelson on him, or start a general rough house. Some of your counsellors might say that you are merely letting off steam; but I prefer to find the explanation in the fact that you are giving evidence of the fact that you are a regular pupil in nature's school.

"Every individual is older than his years. He is governed largely by the wild 'Mother Nature' that is in him. No matter how much I might try to teach Rex, there remain certain old instincts in him that he persists in obeying. Much to Mrs. Vinal's discomfort, he insists on taking a good strong smell of every member of the party whenever company calls at our home. That is merely his ancient method of securing an introduction to his guests. And no matter how good a breakfast we may serve to him, he simply must steal a bone out of my neighbor's garbage pail. Should another dog approach, Rex crouches; the hairs on his back and shoulders bristle up. Thus he proves that he has developed a sense of property and does not welcome another dog in his yard-just as though he were guarding his ancestral den. When settling down in a comfortable parlor chair, he turns around several times as though shaping his bed of leaves. He sings when he hears the cornet, and thus may be reviving the howl of th pack. Indeed, Rex is merely a tamed wolf.

"If we could trace Rex back to the wild state we should find that he traveled in a pack. Early mankind likewise banded together for mutual protection. This is the reason why it is second nature for you fellows to band together and to form groups. However, instead of calling yourself a pack, you become a gang, or a team, or in Boy Scout language, a troop or a patrol.

"The gang spirit was useful first of all for fighting. In camping we recognize the fighting instinct in physical rivalry-in a race or in a tugof-war. In swimming we fight the waves and the tides; on our trips the fight may consist in conquering a mountain height; in adult life, the fight may comprise the elimination of measles in your community. Rex is beginning to get civilized in this fighting game. The second a cat stops running away from him and wheels about, he admits that the game is over. He has learned, too, the folly of fighting a polecat on sight. However, if I corner him when chasing him around the davenport, he growls. If I pat another dog, he growls. You see, jealousy is closely related to the fighting instinct. And, of course, I never try to