NORTH CAROLINA
EDUCATION
A Journal of Education, Rural Progress
and Civic Betterment
Vol. XVI. No. 9
RALEIGH. N. C., MAY, 1922 Price: $1.50 a Year
In Warbler Time
Prom Essays by John Bukkouchs in “Under the Apple-Trees” (Houghton Mifflin Company)
This early May morning, us I. walked through
the fields, the west wind brought to me a sweet,
fresh odor, like that of our little white sweet
Violet. It came probably from the sugar maples,
just shaking out their fringelike blossoms, and
from the blooming elms. For a few hours when
these trees first bloom, they shod a derided per¬
fume. It was the first breath of May, and very
welcome. Aptil lias her odors, too, very delicate
and suggestive, but seldom is the wind perfumed
with the breath of actual bloom before May. I
said, It is warbler time; the first arrivals of the
pretty little migrants should he noted now.
Hardly had my thought defined itself, when be¬
fore me, in a little hemlock, I caught the Hash of
a bine, white-barred wing; tlicn glimpses of a
yellow breast and a yellow crown. I approached
cautiously, and in a moment more had a full
view of one of our rarer warblers, the bine-
winged yellow warbler.
One appreciates liow bright and gay the plum¬
age of many of our warblers is when he sees one
of them alight upon the ground. While passing
along a wood road in June a male black-throated
green came down out of the hemlocks and. sat
for a moment on (lie ground before me. How
out of place lie looked, like a bit of ribbon or
millinery just dropped there! . . . Not long
after I saw tlie chestnut-sided warbler do the
same thing. We were trying to make it out in a
tree by the roadside, when it dropped down
«jtiiekly to the ground ill pursuit of an insect, and
sat a moment upon the brown surface, giving us
a vivid sense of its bright new plumage.
When the leaves of the trees are just unfold¬
ing, or, as Tennyson says,
“When all the woods stand in a mist of green.
And nothing perfect,”
the tide of migratory warblers is at its height.
They conic in (lie niglil, and in the morning the
trees are alive with them. . . . One eold,
rainy day at this season Wilson's black cap — a
bird that is said to go north nearly to the Arctic
Circle — explored ail apple ( ice in front of my
window, ft came down within two feet of my
face, as I stood by the pane, and paused a mo¬
ment in its hurry and peered in at me, giving me
an admirable view of its form and markings. It
was wet and hungry, and it had a long journey
before it. What a small body to cover such a
distance! . . . When one lias learned to note
and discriminate the warblers, lie has made a
good beginning in his ornithological studies.
Contents of This Number
SPECIAL ARTICLES pace
Classification of the Public Schools,
E. C. Brooks . 6
Is there a Need for Science in the High School?
Bert Cunningham . 9
Language Work in the Second Grade,
Elise Fulghum . 7
The Five-Million Dollar P.ond Issue Validated,
E. C. Brooks . 5
Planning a Lesson on the Civil War and
Reconstruction, Wm. T. Laprade — . S
One Standard High School for Every County,
E. C. Brooks . — 5
EDITORIAL
Add Marion and Rockingham . 10
County Campaigns for Home and School Im¬
provement . 11
Good English Campaign . 10
Pith and Paragraph . 10
DEPARTMENTS
Advertisements . 2-1 and 12-24
Editorial . 10-11
State School News . 14-21
MI SCELLAX EOUS
An Aid to Your Children .
11
Centennial of Ebenezer Academy . 16
Lectures Heard S00 Miles Away .
.
. 20
Palmer Method Penmanship Contest . . . 21
