e becoming alarmingly common in the hands of
boys. _Parents must do their duty in the training of their boys against
bird-shooting!_ It is a very serious matter. A million boys who roam the
fields with small rifles without having been instructed in protection,
can destroy an appalling number of valuable birds in the course of a
year. Some parents are so slavishly devoted to their children that they
wish them to do everything they please, and be checked in nothing. Such
parents constitute one of the pests of society, and a drag upon the
happiness of their own children! It is now the bounden duty of each
parent to teach each one of his or her children that the time has come
when the resources of nature, and especially wild life, must be
conserved. To permit boys to grow up and acquire guns without this
knowledge is very wrong.

THE DUTY OF TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS.--A great deal of "nature study" is
being taught in the public schools of the United States. That the young
people of our land should be taught to appreciate the works of nature,
and especially animal life and plant life, is very desirable. Thus far,
however, there is a screw loose in the system, and that is the shortage
in definite, positive instruction regarding _individual duty_ toward the
wild creatures, great and small. Along with their nature studies all our
school children should be taught, in the imperative mood:

1. That it is wrong to disturb breeding birds, or rob birds' nests;

2. That it is wrong to destroy any harmless living creature not properly
classed as game, except it be to preserve it in a museum;

3. That it is no longer right for civilized man to look upon wild game
as _necessary_ food; because there is plenty of other food, and the
remnant of game can not withstand slaughter in that basis;

4. That the time has come when it is the duty of every good citizen to
take an active, aggressive part in _preventing_ the destruction of wild
life, and in _promoting_ its preservation;

5. That every boy and girl over twelve years of age can do _something_
in this cause, and finally,

6. That protection and encouragement will bring back the almost vanished
birds.

We call upon all boards of education, all principals of schools and all
teachers to educate our boys and girls, constantly and imperatively,
along those lines. Teachers, do not say to your pupils,--"It is right
and nice to protect birds," but say:--"It is your _Duty_ to protect all
harm