Let us not forget Louis Agassiz's (1807-1873) famous quip, which is displayed over an entrance to the library of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole:

"Study nature, not books."

An American Indian of the Stoney Indian tribe, Tatanga Mani, (quoted in Touch The Earth,T.C. McLuhan, 1971) said much the same thing as Agassiz, but more eloquently and at greater length:

"Oh, yes, I went to the white man's schools. I learned to read from school books, newspapers and the Bible. But in time I found that these were not enough. Civilized people depend too much on man-made printed pages. I turn to the Great Spirit's book which is the whole of his creation. You can read a big part of that book if you study nature. You know, if you take all your books, lay them out under the sun, and let the snow and rain and insects work on them for a while, there will be nothing left. But the Great Spirit has provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature's university, the forests, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals which include us."
(Learn more about the views of six tribes of American Indians on the worth of a college education.)

Both Mani and Agassiz offer excellent advice to those who wish to make discoveries about the natural world. The young investigator to the right has been studying in nature's university and seems to have learned much about the speed and accuracy of the "left hook" of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus. However, the picture is almost certainly posed with a dead crab because a live blue crab would have both pincers clamped onto the boy's hand.

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