HEATH SUPPLEMENTARY READERS
THE WONDERS OF
THE JUNGLE
PRINCE SARATH GHOSH
Book One
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO ATLANTA
DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO LONDON
Copyright, 1915,
By D. C. Heath & Co.
PREFACE
One of the great thinkers of the world has said that all the sciencesare embodied in natural history. Hence natural history should betaught to a child from an early age.
Perhaps the best method of teaching it is to set forth thecharacteristics of animals in the form of a narrative. Then the childreads the narrative with pleasure and almost as a story, not as atedious "lesson."
I have followed that method in the Wonders of the Jungle. The presentwork (Book One) is intended to be a supplementary reader for theearlier grades in grammar schools. If it be found useful, I shallwrite one or two more books in progressive order for the use of highergrades.
In Book One I have depicted only such wild animals as appeal to theinterest of young children, and even to their sympathy and love. Insubsequent books I shall describe the animals that prey upon others.As those animals are not lovable, it would be better for the child toread about them a year or two later. But even to those animals I shallbe just, and shall depict their good qualities as well as theirpreying habits. How many people know that the very worst animal, thetiger, is a better husband and father than many men? Or that theferocity of the tigress is prompted entirely by her maternalinstinct—and that in every case of unusual ferocity yet recorded itwas afterward found that there was a helpless cub somewhere near?Hence in subsequent books I shall enter more fully into the causes ofanimal instincts and characteristics—their loves and their hates andtheir fears.[iv]
Regarding the scheme of Book One, the animals are described in theirdaily life, and the main scientific facts and principles concerningeach animal are woven into the narrative as a part of that daily life.But while teaching science to the child in that pleasant form, a fewother purposes have also been kept in view:—
1. To cultivate the child's imagination. True imagination is theability to visualize mentally the realities of life, not what isunreal—for which it is so often mistaken. Hence in this book thechild is helped to visualize the animals in their actual haunts, andto see each incident as it actually happens.
2. To cultivate the child's reasoning faculty. The child is encouragedat every