Because we can

[alice wellintown]

 What happened to a sense of wonder?
_Van Morrison
The Wars. The Wars wrung the spirit out of science, out of nature, out of
our children. The calling of scientists, came from and with a new Vibe. Our
children are exposed to chemicals and are deprived of nature. It is no
wonder they have lost their sense of wonder.

In *The Sense of Wonder*, Rachel Carson states:

     If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over
the christening of all children, I should ask her that her gift to each
child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would
last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and
disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that
are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
     If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any
such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one
adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and
mystery of the world we live in (42-45).


The Nature-Study Movement philosophy had roots in Presbyterianism and its
ideas were developed and defended by Cornell biologist Anna Botsford
Comstock and her associate botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey. In his Journal
“Anna Botsford Comstock – Matriarch of the American Nature-Study Movement,”
Charles Yaple writes about Anna Comstock’s importance to the nature-study
movement:





















Involved from the beginning, Anna Comstock helped create and implement the
nature study curriculum. The program was successful and gained financial
support from New York State Legislature in 1896, to expand the scope of
operation. Anna took on the work of writing and illustrating Cornell Nature
Study Leaflets and study guides in addition to training teachers how to
teach nature study. (6)

In the Journal, “Constructing Sympathy’s Forge: Empiricism, Ethics, and
Environmental Education in the Thought of Liberty Hyde Bailey and John
Dewey,” John Azelvandre writes about the work of Liberty Hyde Bailey:

     At the end of the nineteenth century, the onward march of
industrialization and urbanization in America, with its attendant
intermittent economic crises and crashes, closely paralleled the dawning
public realization of the limits and fragility of America’s natural
landscape. These forces, coupled with Bailey’s own experiences with the
study of botany, led to his involvement with a movement advocating the
study of natural objects and processes in the rapidly expanding elementary
school system in the hopes of remedying the growing cognitive and
ontological disconnection he observed.

     In his involvement with the development of nature-study programs for
children […] Bailey expressed his views on how best to heal this
disconnection and to obtain a fruitful relationship with the wider world.
In the *Nature-Study Idea*, Bailey propounded nature-study – first hand, in
the field experience with nature – as the best way of instilling a moral
regard for nature. He described it as a “fundamental and… general education
process” and as “experience teaching.” Echoing the popular ideas of
Rosseau, the motto of Bailey and his associates was “teach Nature, not
Books.” (172)



In *Rachel Carson Witness for Nature*, Linda Lear explains the development
of the Nature-Study Movement which was the foundation for Rachel Carson’s
respect, awareness, “response-ability” (as defined by Bailey), and defense
of the planet Earth. Lear writes:

Comstock’s *Handbook of Nature Study *(1911) taught the methods by which
every elementary- age child in the country could learn to love nature.
Nature-study, according to Comstock, would cultivate the child’s
imagination, his perception of the truth, and his ability to express it.
Most important, it would instill a “love of the beautiful,” a “sense of
companionship with life out-of-doors, and an abiding love of nature.”
Embracing the ideas of natural theology that by studying nature, the
intricate design of the Creator would become visible, the nature movement
taught that nature was holy. The implications for the individual were
clear; conservation was, as Bailey said, “a divine obligation,” and the
conservation movement, a religious crusade. (14)

After quoting Bailey, Lear continues:

>From the time Rachel was one year old, she and her mother spent increasing
amount of time outdoors, walking the woods and orchards, exploring the
springs, and naming flowers, birds, and insects […] They talked about what
they saw in the woods and particularly watched for birds. The distinctive
quality of their experience was shared delight. From the first Rachel
responded emotionally to her mother’s love of nature. Her acuity of
observation and her eye for detail were shaped on these childhood outings.
(16)



In *The Gentle Subversive Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the
Environmental Movement*, Mark Hamilton Lytle summarizes Rachel Carson’s
home childhood education:

In their approach to nature studies, Comstock and Bailey described the
education Maria Carson tried to impart to her children […] from Comstock’s
texts Maria adapted lessons she could teach to her children while using her
farm and its woodsy environs as a classroom. And from Bailey she derived
another idea that shaped Rachel’s thinking. Where Gilbert White and many
“back to nature” enthusiasts assumed that God had placed humans at the
center of his creation and placed other living things for their use, Bailey
understood from Charles Darwin that creation was an ecological process in
which all living things played a role. The “living creation,” Bailey noted,
“is not exclusively man-centered; it is biocentric.” Maria Carson
inculcated that biocentric ideal in her children, and Rachel took it truly
to heart. (24)

By the time Rachel Carson finished High School, her love for nature was
established and, though she possessed a solitary personality, enhanced her
self-confidence and helped her succeed. Lear writes:

Rachel entered already a serious student with well-defined goals and an
unusual sense of purpose. Her childhood experiences had given her an acuity
and an eye for detail, a recognition of the importance of the small, the
commonplace, and the nearby that she should experiment with in her college
themes. Rachel’s love of the outdoors had about it the fresh delight of
discovery. Her mother’s companionship as teacher and partner brought with
it an obligation to help others see and to share in the wonder. […]
Self-confident about her intellectual abilities and solitary by nature,
Rachel had few social graces and little understanding of how to interact in
a wider society. She was fiercely determined to become all that she could
be for herself. She also had a vision, not yet articulated, an inchoate
sense of some special calling that awaited her (25-26).




On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 5:35 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Nice article and I might suggest that wonder (at the world) is a
> foundational theme of Against the Day.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jun 22, 2013, at 4:21 AM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> http://www.aeonmagazine.com/oceanic-feeling/why-wonder-is-the-most-human-of-all-emotions/
> ****
>
> ** **
>
>
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