Cirrus@Austlit

Victorian State Library copy signed by the author with following handwritten message:

'Do you love Nature? Do the flowers, the trees, and the birds, talk to you? Have you ever met the brownies and pixies? I often think that we would be wiser and better men and women if we only listened to the messages the "Seven Little Grey Men" sent us!'

Introduction:

'The teaching of "nature study" is by no means an easy matter. It is essentially a subject in which the interest of the pupil must be maintained; and it must never be allowed to degenerate into a mere cataloguing of the names of plants and animals. The interest can be obtained in various ways, but this production of Mr J. J. Hall should be exceptionally successful. This book is intended for children, and there is no better method of holding their interest than by telling them stories. The information which is to be conveyed to the children is so interwoven with the plot of the stories that the children absorb the knowledge without realising they are doing lessons.

'The stories have the additional merit of being tried on children. It was largely the needs of a teacher which induced the author to write the stories; and it was the interest which the children in our Preparatory School displayed which encouraged him to put them into print. But they have not only a scholastic appeal; the style is simple and such as children can appreciate, and yet, I venture to think, not without literary merit. I feel sure that they will be read with pleasure by children, and that those who have read them will have a better insight into the natural life of their own country.

'R. P. Franklin, Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, 1st December, 1919.'