Careful observers become accurate thinkers. These are the men that are
needed everywhere and by everybody. By observation the scholar gets more
out of his books, the traveler more enjoyment from the beauties of
nature, and the young person who is quick to read human character avoids
companions that would be likely to lead him into the ways of vice and
folly, and perhaps cause his life to become a total wreck.


JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

In 1828 a wonderful book, "The Birds of America," by John James Audubon,
was issued. It is a good illustration of what has been accomplished by
beginning in one's youth to use the powers of observation. Audubon loved
and studied birds. Even in his infancy, lying under the orange trees on
his father's plantation in Louisiana, he listened to the mocking bird's
song, watching and observing every motion as it flitted from bough to
bough. When he was older he began to sketch every bird that he saw, and
soon showed so much talent that he was taken to France to be educated.

He entered cheerfully and earnestly upon his studies, and more than a
year was devoted to mathematics; but whenever it was possible he rambled
about the country, using his eyes and fingers, collecting more
specimens, and sketching with such assiduity that when he left France,
only seventeen years old, he had finished two hundred drawings of French
birds. At this period he tells us that "it was not the desire of fame
which prompted to this devotion; it was simply the enjoyment of nature."

A story is told of his lying on his back in the woods with some moss for
his pillow, and looking through a telescopic microscope day after day to
watch a pair of little birds while they made their nest. Their peculiar