School of The Woods

About ten years ago we were given a box of books which had been in Mrs L's grandfather's house. I didn't have much work on today so we started to look through the box and to make a listing of the books with a view to selling them. They are mostly late 19th and early 20th century theology and church architecture books (Mrs L's grandfather was a clergyman) but there are a few about natural history. I was particularly struck by "School of the Woods" by William J. Long. Published by Ginn and Company in 1903 it comprises 'observations' on how woodland birds and animals 'train' their young. The book was highly controversial and Long found himself at the centre of the 'nature fakers controversy'. Roosevelt had Long's books removed from school libraries, while Long countered that the President had 'never met an animal he didn't kill'. What interested me beyond the controversy however were the beautiful line drawings by Charles Copeland including this frontispiece with a nice illustration of a turn of the century camera.