Voices of Nature in the School-room
By Effa G. Gilbert
MANY are the valuable lessons teachers and pupils have been gathering from nature all through the seasons of the year. And while the spring, summer, and autumn appeal most readily to the child, and these seasons are the best for form study, color work, and drawing, well-directed practise in these lines will enrich the young minds with ideas which will cause them to be readily reproduced in the long winter months. For then nature’s outward expression of life has apparently vanished, and vivid pictures of some of the beauties their eyes have rested upon in the summer, will bring cheerful smiles and profitable thoughts. It will also give the teacher an interesting way in which to present some most important truths. The following arrangement was found helpful in this direction: different pupils who could draw were given some simple yet attractive flowers as hyacinths, tulips, or violets, together with some birds, to place on the board with colored crayon. The brown soil was shown with the flowers growing from it, and above a row of flowers was a branch containing a row of birds in different attitudes—of singing, listening, and arranging feathers. The effect was a pleasing one upon the children, and many helpful thoughts were brought forth; but the lesson they taught was made quite inspiring when a visitor was speaking to the children one morning. Starting with a few simple questions which the children could answer concerning the drawings, he led them to see a beautiful truth. That which comprises the tissues of the plant and its blossoms has been taken from the soil or dust, and by the power of God has been transformed from dust to an expression of beauty which speaks to us of the Creator, and helps us to see a glimpse of his glory. The different kingdoms themselves show us how He would have us look from glory to glory in the works of his creation. For just as the bird world is above the flower world, and the higher animals and man above the bird world, and all are renewed from the dust of the earth by the power of God, or really transformed from dust to glorious life, so we are to be prepared for translation from the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of Christ, and be led from glory to glory throughout eternity. And just as the leaves of the forest, the songs of the birds, and all voices of nature speak to us of right and wrong, and as we can see where God’s hand has written in field and flower, forest and fern, in wild-wood and jungle, so by his Spirit he would fashion our lives into different formations of character for fitting into his kingdom. The infinite care manifested in the preparation of the buds for the storms and conflicts of the winter serves as a very important lesson just now. That22this preparation should be made in the last days of summer before the more noticeable signs of winter’s approach that have come, and this preparation of next year’s growths accomplished with such forethought, make it all the more significant. The buds are protected, and so arranged that when the conditions for their change have arrived, they are ready to respond quickly and naturally to the voice that calls them forth. So it is with the truths and lessons to-day which the people and their children in this message are receiving. Now is the preparation time for the approaching storms and conflicts. Here in the expressions of nature with the children is where seeds are to be sown for the harvest. While often the seeds seem cast upon rocky, barren heart-soil, yet there have truly been silent undergrowths, wherever the Spirit of God has found a crevice where it could work with its softening, quickening power, and although immediate tokens of success in drawing souls heavenward may not always be seen, these truths and their impressions will not be entirely forgotten by the young minds. A good illustration from nature of what true religion is in the life, and a unique way of teaching it, is suggested in this statement from “Christ’s Object Lessons:” “In those who possess it, the religion of Jesus Christ is not as a pool that evaporates, not like a broken cistern that loses its treasure; it is like the mountain stream, fed by unfailing springs, whose cool sparkling waters leap from rock to rock, refreshing the weary, the thirsty, and the heavy laden.” Just so all nature leaps on in its course, ever changing in its seasons, ever fresh and new, and in it God’s children can see an emblem of what their growth and helpfulness should be.