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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B.

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Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

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Speaker 2: A few times over the past few years, science writer

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Speaker 2: Rosemary Moscow has told me that a good topic for

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Speaker 2: this podcast might be the sparrow War, and the first

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Speaker 2: couple of times she suggested this, I was like Chairman

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Speaker 2: Mouse thing, because we talked about that on the show

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Speaker 2: in an episode on the famine that was connected to

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Speaker 2: Mao Zedong's four Pests campaign, which involved trying to eradicate spars.

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Speaker 1: This is not that.

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Speaker 2: The one that Rosemary was suggesting was a dispute over

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Speaker 2: the house sparrow, which at the time was often called

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Speaker 2: the English sparrow, and the introduction of this bird into

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Speaker 2: North America. So Rosemary is the author of a pocket

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Speaker 2: Guide to Pigeon Watching, Getting to Know the World's Most

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Speaker 2: Misunderstood Bird, along with several other books, and she wrote

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Speaker 2: an article about the house sparrow for Autumn Magazine in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three that was titled Meet the Little Brown

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Speaker 2: Bird that holds a mirror up to humanity. And this

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Speaker 2: is something that she came across while doing research for

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Speaker 2: these things that she's written, and just kept.

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Speaker 1: Sort of prodding me about it.

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Speaker 2: She is right, I do love a ridiculous feud, and

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Speaker 2: this was ridiculous, so it took me a while to

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Speaker 2: get to it. But thank you Rosemary for the suggestion.

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Speaker 2: A lot of people had very strong opinions about how

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Speaker 2: sparrows in the late nineteenth century, which continues to be

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Speaker 2: true today, but this feud was mainly between Elliot Cows

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Speaker 2: and Thomas Mayo Brewer. We're not going to try to

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Speaker 2: do full biographies of these two men, but we did

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Speaker 2: want to give a glimpse into who they were and

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Speaker 2: what they did aside from fighting over sparrows. Thomas Mayo

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Speaker 2: Brewer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November twenty first,

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Speaker 2: eighteen fourteen. He was from a well off New England family,

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Speaker 2: and his grandfather, Colonel James Brewer, participated in the Boston

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Speaker 2: Tea Party. Brewer went to Harvard Medical School, and after

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Speaker 2: becoming a doctor, he spent some time with a medical

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Speaker 2: practice in Boston's North End, but eventually he left medicine

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Speaker 2: and he became an editor at the Boston Atlas, where,

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Speaker 2: in the words of an obituary. He became a quote

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Speaker 2: political writer of unusual ability.

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Speaker 1: He was also interested in birds and in wology, or

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Speaker 1: the study of bird eggs. He started publishing on birds

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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty seven, and he developed a reputation for

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Speaker 1: himself within the field. In eighteen seventy four, he published

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Speaker 1: a three volume history of North American birds, which was

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Speaker 1: co authored with Spencer F. Baird and Robert Ridgeway Brews.

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Speaker 1: The Waterbirds of North America was also published, but posthumously.

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Speaker 2: Brewer also became a friend and colleague of John James Audubon.

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Speaker 2: Audubon named at least two birds after Brewer, although one

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Speaker 2: was a duck that turned out to be a Mallard

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Speaker 2: Gadwell hybrid and not a newly described duck species, and

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Speaker 2: the other one was a blackbird that had already been

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Speaker 2: described by someone else.

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Speaker 1: Brewer died on January twenty third, eighteen eighty, at his

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Speaker 1: home in Boston, at the age of sixty five. In

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Speaker 1: addition to his work in journalism and ornithology, he had

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Speaker 1: also served on the Boston School Board. He was survived

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Speaker 1: by his wife, Sally R. Coffin, who he had married

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine, as well as their daughter Lucy

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Speaker 1: Stone Brewer. Thomas and Sally had also had a son, Charles,

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Speaker 1: who had died in childhood. During his lifetime, Brewer had

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Speaker 1: built a collection of bird eggs that included almost fifteen

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Speaker 1: thousand specimens from three thousand different species, described as one

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Speaker 1: of the largest such private collections in existence. He left

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Speaker 1: this collection to the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge.

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Speaker 1: In the words of an obituary in the Bulletin of

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Speaker 1: the Nattal Ornithological Club, of which Brewer was a member, quote, Socially,

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Speaker 1: doctor Brewer was greatly esteemed. His warm sympathy, his loyalty

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Speaker 1: to friends, and to his convictions of truth and duty

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Speaker 1: were marked traits in his character removed suddenly, and when

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Speaker 1: there were apparently years of activity and leisure before him

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Speaker 1: for research. His loss to science is not easily replaced.

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Speaker 1: But also in the words the Biographical Dictionary of American

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Speaker 1: and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists, quote, Brewer regarded the field

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Speaker 1: of Massachusetts birds as his private domain and did not

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Speaker 1: think highly of younger generation of ornithologists. One of the

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Speaker 1: younger generation of ornithologists was Elliot Ladd Cow's He was

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Speaker 1: born on September ninth, eighteen forty two, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire,

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Speaker 1: and was also descended from early colonists. When he was

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Speaker 1: still a child, his family moved to Washington, d c.

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Speaker 1: And that's where he lived for the rest of his

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Speaker 1: life life except when he was stationed somewhere else as

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Speaker 1: an army surgeon. He studied medicine at Colombian College, which

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Speaker 1: is now George Washington University, earning an MD and a PhD.

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Speaker 1: Cow's work on birds and his time in the army

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Speaker 1: both started while he was still in medical school. He

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Speaker 1: published his first work on birds in eighteen sixty one

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Speaker 1: at the age of nineteen, and he enlisted in the

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Speaker 1: US Army as a medical cadet a year later. He

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Speaker 1: was recognized for his work in ornithology right away. That

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Speaker 1: first monograph, which was on North American shore birds, was

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Speaker 1: described as something that would have reflected well on a

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Speaker 1: scientist of much greater experience. Cows also published on mammals

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Speaker 1: and reptiles, producing at least three hundred works over the

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Speaker 1: span of about twenty years. In addition to all of that,

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Speaker 1: he worked with the US Northern Boundary Commission and the

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Speaker 1: US Geological and Geographical Survey of the territories in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventies.

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Speaker 2: Cow's major work on birds included Key to North Americans Birds,

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Speaker 2: which first came out in eighteen seventy two. His Checklist

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Speaker 2: of North American Birds was published in eighteen seventy three,

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Speaker 2: and Field Ornithology came out in eighteen seventy four. He

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Speaker 2: also edited and published the journals and other writings of

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Speaker 2: a number of explorers and travelers, including the History of

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Speaker 2: the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Expeditions of Zebulon

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Speaker 2: Montgomery Pike. In eighteen seventy seven, he was elected a

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Speaker 2: member of the National Academy of Science, and eventually became

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Speaker 2: a member of most of the scientific societies in the

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Speaker 2: US and Europe for a time. Cows was also deeply

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Speaker 2: interested in spiritualism and theosophy. He wrote a number of

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Speaker 2: works on these subjects, including, for example, two letters in

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Speaker 2: the Nation on December twenty fifth, eighteen eighty four, one

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Speaker 2: on psychic research and the other on the feasibility of

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Speaker 2: studying ghosts. The letter on ghosts discusses all the ways

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Speaker 2: that ghosts can be studied using evidence gathered through a

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Speaker 2: person's senses, including writing that ghosts quote frequently, not usually

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Speaker 2: emit a perceptible odor, sometimes very strong, sometimes fragrant, sometimes

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Speaker 2: the reverse, nearly always peculiar to themselves. He was a

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Speaker 2: friend of past podcast subject Madam Blovotsky, and held offices

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Speaker 2: in the Theosophical Society, including serving as president of its

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Speaker 2: American Board of Control. But in eighteen ninety The New

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Speaker 2: York Sun published an expose titled Blovotsky Unveiled. This took

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Speaker 2: the form of an interview with Cows. I don't know

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Speaker 2: what caused his sudden about face here, but afterward he

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Speaker 2: was expelled from the Society. Blovotsky filed suit against him

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Speaker 2: and against the Sun, but then she died in eighteen

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Speaker 2: ninety one. After her death, the Sun retracted the expose,

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Speaker 2: and this almost became its own episode. It could maybe

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Speaker 2: one day, but it's was eventually like you gotta go

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Speaker 2: back to the sparrows now, right. Madam Blovotsky had a

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Speaker 2: lot of ups and downs with people, so I'm not

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Speaker 2: entirely surprised. Elliott Cows died at the Johns Hopkins Hospital

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Speaker 2: in Baltimore, Maryland, on December twenty fifth, eighteen ninety nine,

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Speaker 2: at the age of fifty seven. I was following a

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Speaker 2: pair of surgical procedures. He had been in a coma,

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Speaker 2: but in the moments before his death he reportedly regained consciousness,

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Speaker 2: sat upright, and said, welcome, Oh, welcome, beloved death before dying.

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Speaker 2: Cows had been married twice, first to Jane Augusta McKinney

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Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty seven. They had five children, three of

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Speaker 2: whom survived childhood. Their marriage ended in divorce in eighteen

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Speaker 2: eighty six, and the announcement of the divorce that ran

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Speaker 2: in the Washington DC Evening Star describes Cows not as

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Speaker 2: a doctor or as a scientist, but as the noted theosophist.

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Speaker 2: His second wife was Mary Emily Bates, who he married

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Speaker 2: in eighteen eighty seven. In the words of a biographical

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Speaker 2: moir of Cows that was read before the National Academy

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Speaker 2: of Sciences in nineteen oh nine, quote as an antagonist,

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Speaker 2: he was sometimes bitter and unforgiving. The only mention of

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Speaker 2: Sparrows in that piece is in the footnote to that sentence,

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Speaker 2: which reads, quote, an unfortunate illustration is his controversy with

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Speaker 2: the late doctor T. M. Brewer, of which doctor Cows

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Speaker 2: himself said, twenty years after the death of his opponent,

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Speaker 2: the controversy had become between doctor Brewer and myself, a

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Speaker 2: personal feud with the usual accompaniments in the way of

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Speaker 2: sweetness and light. We'll get to what they were feuding

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Speaker 2: about after a sponsor break. In the eighteen fifties, caterpillars

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Speaker 2: were a problem in the Eastern United States. Different accounts

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Speaker 2: named different caterpillars, but most of them are moth larvae

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Speaker 2: that kind of dangle from their silk, and they were

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Speaker 2: colloqu called things like dropworms or canker worms. Rosemary Moscow's

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Speaker 2: article on the house sparrow cites an inch worm called

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Speaker 2: the elm span worm. Other sources cite linden moth larvae,

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Speaker 2: which are also inch worms. During an outbreak, these caterpillars

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Speaker 2: defoliate trees, drop onto people and surfaces, poop everywhere, and

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Speaker 2: they just generally make a big mess. Most of the time.

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Speaker 2: The damage from a caterpillar outbreak is unsightly, but healthy

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Speaker 2: trees can't typically survive a year or two of caterpillar defoliation.

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Speaker 2: Usually trees only die if there's also something else going on,

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Speaker 2: like a drought, or a disease, or if the caterpillars

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Speaker 2: defoliate the same tree year after year after year. Caterpillar

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Speaker 2: outbreaks are usually cyclical. Typically they eventually end on their own,

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Speaker 2: but people often want to try to do something about them,

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Speaker 2: and one proposed solution for the caterpillar problem in the

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Speaker 2: mid nineteenth century was to import house sparrows or passer

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Speaker 2: domesticus from Europe. These are small, stockybirds and shades of buff, brown, gray,

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Speaker 2: and black, with the males more brightly colored than the females.

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Speaker 2: They're native to a lot of Europe and Asia, as

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Speaker 2: well as northern Africa. So to today's ear, introducing a

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Speaker 2: non native bird species with the hope of controlling caterpillars

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Speaker 2: with them probably sounds like an obviously bad idea. This

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Speaker 2: is Homer Simpson logic. We have talked on the show

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Speaker 2: before about what happened when people tried to use kudzu,

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Speaker 2: which is native to East Asia, for erosion control in

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Speaker 2: the United States, and what happened when colonists brought rabbits

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Speaker 2: from Europe to Australia because they wanted Australia to feel

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Speaker 2: more like Britain. Kudzu was later nicknamed the vine that

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Speaker 2: ate the South, and we discussed those rabbits in an

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Speaker 2: episode about an attempt to fence off an entire portion

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Speaker 2: of Australia just to contain them. There are actually three

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Speaker 2: fences because the rabbits kept getting ahead of the fence bill.

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Speaker 2: But this sparrow importation idea was happening alongside the acclimatization movement,

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Speaker 2: which developed primarily in the UK and France in the

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Speaker 2: eighteen thirties and forties. This movement was connected to colonialism,

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Speaker 2: and it was focused on introducing non native species and

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Speaker 2: acclimatizing them to their new homes, as well as reshaping

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Speaker 2: the world through the introduction of these plants and animals.

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Speaker 2: This was more intentional and systemic than most earlier efforts

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Speaker 2: to try to introduce non native plants and animals to

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Speaker 2: other parts of the world, so things like the introduction

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Speaker 2: of food crops from the Americas to Europe and vice versa.

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Speaker 2: Starting in the late fifteenth century, there were more than

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Speaker 2: fifty acclimatization societies around the world by nineteen hundred, and

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Speaker 2: while the ones in the United States were established after

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Speaker 2: the sparrows had already been introduced, the acclimatization movement was like.

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Speaker 2: Part of the context for their introductions was all to

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Speaker 2: how people were thinking about what it was okay to

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Speaker 2: do with non native plants and animals.

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Speaker 1: The first attempts to introduce how sparrows into North America

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Speaker 1: were not successful. One of the earliest was in eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty when the Brooklyn Institute in New York got eight

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Speaker 1: pairs of sparrows from England and kept them in cages

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Speaker 1: over the winter. The birds did not thrive when they

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Speaker 1: were released in the spring, but the birds fared a

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Speaker 1: bit better in a second attempt two years later. The

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Speaker 1: first really successful effort was likely in Portland, Maine, in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four.

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Speaker 2: Soon other cities were discussing whether they should import house

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Speaker 2: sparrows as well. Cities started buying hundreds or even thousands

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Speaker 2: of sparrows, mostly from England or Germany, and then releasing

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Speaker 2: them into their parks and other green spaces. A number

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Speaker 2: of articles written more recently about the sparrow war also

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Speaker 2: described immigrants to the United States as wanting to have

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Speaker 2: familiar birds around. It kind of conjures up images of

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Speaker 2: like people getting onto a steamship with a pair of

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Speaker 2: birds in a cage. Really, though, the biggest releases of

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Speaker 2: sparrows in the United States seem to have been carried

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Speaker 2: out by cities or civic organizations, not people coming to

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Speaker 2: the US with a couple of familiar birds.

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Speaker 1: And at first there was a lot of enthusiasm around

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Speaker 1: the idea that the sparrows might save everyone from all

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Speaker 1: those pesky caterpillars. For example, in eighteen fifty nine, William

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Speaker 1: Cullen Bryan wrote a poem called The Old World Sparrow,

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Speaker 1: which began, we hear the note of a stranger bird

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Speaker 1: that ne'er till now in our land was heard. A

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Speaker 1: winged settler has taken his place with tutons and men

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Speaker 1: of Celtic race. He has followed their paths to our hemisphere.

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Speaker 1: The Old World sparrow, at last is here the insects

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Speaker 1: legion that sting our fruit and strip the leaves from

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Speaker 1: the growing shoot, A swarming, skulking, ravenous tribe which Harris

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Speaker 1: and Flint so well describe but cannot destroy. May quail

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Speaker 1: with fear for the Old World sparrow. Their bane is here.

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Speaker 1: If you're thinking something about this poem feels a little

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Speaker 1: racist to me, we're gonna get to that later.

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Speaker 2: Uh. And not everybody thought this was a great idea,

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Speaker 2: especially as the number of sparrows started to grow and

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Speaker 2: people realized that they were not only not magically ridding

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Speaker 2: North America of unwanted caterpillars, but were also eating grain

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Speaker 2: and other food crops. In April of eighteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 2: Charles Pickering spoke before the Boston Society of Natural History

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Speaker 2: describing the introduction of the European house sparrow as threatening

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Speaker 2: a great evil. According to the society proceedings, he cited

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Speaker 2: proofs from quote standard authors that showed that the bird

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Speaker 2: had been quote the acknowledged enemy of mankind for more

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Speaker 2: than five thousand years. In eighteen sixty eight, Thomas Mayo

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Speaker 2: Brewer came to the house sparrow's defense in Atlantic Monthly, writing, quote,

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Speaker 2: the sparrow is not all evil.

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Speaker 1: That he does. A great deal of good is now

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Speaker 1: universally admitted. The good already accomplished by the few of

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Speaker 1: his race domiciled among us, is indisputable and of the

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Speaker 1: first importance. Brewer did acknowledge that there were reports of

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Speaker 1: the birds eating ripening grain, but he ended this piece

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Speaker 1: with quote, the house sparrow will erelong become one of

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Speaker 1: our most common and familiar favorites. By eighteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: Elliott Cows was voicing his doubts about the sparrows. On

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Speaker 1: May twenty eighth of that year, he wrote to zoologists

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Speaker 1: an ornithologist to J. A. Allen, saying, quote, do you

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Speaker 1: share my apprehension about that wretched ornithological bouvers mont passer domesticus.

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Speaker 1: I despise the site of that bird in this country.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure how Alan responded, but at this point

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Speaker 1: he might not have actually shared Cow's apprehension. Yet two

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Speaker 1: years earlier he had written a piece on the rarer

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Speaker 1: birds of Massachusetts for The American Naturalist, and he had

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Speaker 1: said of the sparrows quote two pairs turned loose in

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Speaker 1: the Boston Common a few years since seemed to be

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Speaker 1: slowly increasing in numbers, and bid fair to be of

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Speaker 1: great service in checking the ravages of several species of

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Speaker 1: caterpillars that now greatly injure the foliage of the shade trees.

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Speaker 1: These interesting birds are now frequently observable, both on the

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Speaker 1: common and in the public garden. Cows also voiced his

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Speaker 1: apprehension in his Key to North American Birds, which came

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Speaker 1: out that same year. It described the birds as already

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Speaker 1: abundant in many towns and cities of the Eastern and

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Speaker 1: Middle States, and also recently introduced into Salt Lake City. Quote,

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Speaker 1: it has proved highly beneficial by destroying cankerworms. The pest

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Speaker 1: of our shade trees, and our dusty streets are enlivened

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Speaker 1: with its presence. But if it continues to multiply at

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Speaker 1: the present rate, it must soon overflow municipal limits. And

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Speaker 1: then the result of the contact of this hardy foreigner

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Speaker 1: with our native birds may cause us to regret its introduction,

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Speaker 1: unless it finds natural enemies to check its increase. So

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Speaker 1: Cows and Brewer already had differing opinions on this sparrow,

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Speaker 1: but until this point their relationship seems to have been

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Speaker 1: pretty cordial. Cows had referred to Brewer as a friend.

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Speaker 1: But things started to become acrimonious in eighteen seventy four,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get to that after a sponsor break. By

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Speaker 1: the early eighteen seventies, it had become clear that how

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Speaker 1: sparrows were not going to save North America from caterpillars.

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Speaker 1: They did eat caterpillars, but in some areas that inchworm

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Speaker 1: outbreak had ended and a new caterpillar outbreak had started,

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Speaker 1: but these were fuzzy caterpillars that the sparrows apparently did

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Speaker 1: not like to eat. The sparrows also liked to eat grain,

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Speaker 1: that was of course a problem with crops, but they

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Speaker 1: also liked to pick partially digested grain out of horse manure,

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Speaker 1: which was all over the streets and cities and towns

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Speaker 1: and the era before or the introduction of automobiles, So

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Speaker 1: people obviously thought that was gross and that the birds

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Speaker 1: were unsanitary. House sparrows also like to nest in and

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Speaker 1: near buildings, and they like to congregate in the foliage

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Speaker 1: and sing together, and people found their chirping very annoying.

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Speaker 1: In July of eighteen seventy four, Elliot Cows reported a

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Speaker 1: communication from ornithologist and naturalist Thomas G. Gentry in the

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Speaker 1: Zoology section of American Naturalists, saying that European sparrows were

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Speaker 1: driving robins, bluebirds, and native sparrows away from Germantown, Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 1: and that their population was growing rapidly. Cows added to

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Speaker 1: this quote, I did not expect the bad news quite

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Speaker 1: so soon. Probably it will not be long before we

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Speaker 1: hear the same complaints from other places. I have always

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Speaker 1: been opposed to the introduction of the birds, mainly on

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Speaker 1: this score, but also for other reasons. There is no

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Speaker 1: occasion for them in this country. The good they do

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Speaker 1: in destroying certain insects has been overrated. I foresee the

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Speaker 1: time when it will be deemed advisable to take measures

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Speaker 1: to get rid of the birds, or at least to

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Speaker 1: check their increase.

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Speaker 2: In September, American Naturalists printed a response from Thomas Brewer,

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Speaker 2: who wrote, quote, I regret very much that a naturalist,

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Speaker 2: generally so well informed as doctor Cows should aid in

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Speaker 2: giving what my own observations compel me to believe to

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Speaker 2: be an altogether wrong statement in regard to the House Sparrow.

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Speaker 2: Brewer described Cows as biased. I mean he had admitted

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Speaker 2: he was opposed to the bird's introduction from the beginning.

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Speaker 2: Brewer said, now Cows was condemning the birds based on

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Speaker 2: the scantiest of evidence. Brewer also rejected Gentry's report entirely,

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Speaker 2: and he refuted it point by point, but his refutation

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Speaker 2: mostly involved him saying that he did not believe what

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Speaker 2: Gentry had written, and he had not observed the birds

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Speaker 2: doing those things, and had in fact seen the opposite.

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Speaker 1: Brewer and Cows also had a similar back and forth

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Speaker 1: in American Sportsmen, and in eighteen seventy seven they rehashed

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Speaker 1: the entire same argument in the Washington Gazette. By this point,

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Speaker 1: most ornithologists and other scientists generally agreed with Cow's position

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Speaker 1: on the sparrows, but Brewer still had defenders from other fields.

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Speaker 1: Clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, condemned

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Speaker 1: cows and praised the sparrow in a piece called Sparrows

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Speaker 1: to the Rescue, which was published in the Christian Union

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven. Beecher wrote of cows, quote, his

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Speaker 1: name shall be known in the Kingdom of Birds as

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Speaker 1: a public foe. A price shall be put upon his head,

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Speaker 1: and on some day, unawares, he shall be surrounded by

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Speaker 1: swarms of sparrows, darkening the sun, and multitudinous as the

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Speaker 1: locusts of Minnesota. This piece then kind of becomes the

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Speaker 1: reenactment of Offered Hitchcock's The Birds, with the birds targeting cows.

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Speaker 1: Other opponents included Henry Burr, founder of the American Society

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Speaker 1: for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who called him a murderer.

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Speaker 1: In January of eighteen seventy eight, Brewer visited Cows at

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Speaker 1: his office in Washington, d c. Where their discussion apparently

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00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:20,240
Speaker 1: became heated. Cow said the Nuttall Ornithological Club, of which

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Speaker 1: Brewer was a member, should investigate the impact of the

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Speaker 1: house sparrow, and the club did, but Brewer did not

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Speaker 1: attend the open meeting where the birds were discussed, and

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00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:33,439
Speaker 1: the club's other members were critical of the sparrows. A

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Speaker 1: couple of incredibly insulting articles about the club then appeared

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Speaker 1: in the Boston Evening Transcript and the Boston Journal. Cows

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Speaker 1: accused Brewer of writing them. Brewer denied that.

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Speaker 2: In the August eighteen seventy eight issue of American Naturalists,

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Speaker 2: there was an article by Elliot Cows called the ineligibility

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Speaker 2: of the European house sparrow in America. He began, quote,

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Speaker 2: it is very regrettable that the sparrow question, which has

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Speaker 2: already become a matter of national moment, should have degenerated

372
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 2: into such a miserable personal controversy between the sentimentalists who

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Speaker 2: misrepresent the facts, and the ornithologists who understand them, that

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Speaker 2: a prudent person, whatever his views, might refrain from having

375
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Speaker 2: anything to do with it. After describing it as the

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Speaker 2: conscientious discharge of his duty to lay out all the facts,

377
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Speaker 2: Cows continued, quote, I do not write for ornithologists. So

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Speaker 2: far as I am aware, there is not a scientific

379
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 2: ornithologist in America among those who have expressed any decided

380
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 2: opinion who are in favor of the wretched interlopers which

381
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 2: we have so thoughtlessly introduced and played with and cuddled

382
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Speaker 2: like a parcel of hysterical slate pencil eating schoolgirls. He

383
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Speaker 2: then went on to insult Brewer specifically, although without naming him, quote,

384
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Speaker 2: I am in position to affirm that the sneers, the invectives,

385
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:00,880
Speaker 2: the ridicule and abuse, and the wildest assertions of the

386
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 2: leader or leaders of the pro Sparrow faction result from

387
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Speaker 2: a frantic despair in the face of the facts which

388
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 2: ornithologists coolly adduce. With that out of the way, he

389
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 2: characterized the Sparrow's defenders as quote, first, those who know

390
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 2: nothing and care nothing particularly about them, except that they

391
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 2: rather like the pert and brusque familiarity of the birds,

392
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 2: a class composed chiefly of children, women, and old fogies. Secondly,

393
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Speaker 2: those who are or were instrumental in getting the birds here,

394
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Speaker 2: and are interested either in reputation or in pocket to

395
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Speaker 2: keep them here. Thirdly, quasi ornithologists who have been misled

396
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 2: into hasty expressions of opinion to which they feel bound

397
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 2: to stick. Fourthly, the clackers of the last, who play

398
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 2: a sort of Simon says up game. Fifthly, a very

399
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 2: few intelligent and scientific persons, but not practical nor professional ornithologists,

400
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 2: who recognize fully what little good the sparrow undeniably does,

401
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 2: and shape a favorable argument, mainly from the undisputed advantages

402
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 2: which result from a certain, just and proper number of

403
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 2: sparrows in Europe. Cows then offered five arguments against the

404
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 2: house sparrow. They don't do the thing they were imported

405
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 2: to do, which was eat all the caterpillars. They attack, harass,

406
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 2: and sometimes kill native birds. They destroy things like kitchen

407
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 2: gardens and grain fields. Quote, they are personally obnoxious and

408
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 2: unpleasant to many persons. And lastly, they have no natural

409
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 2: enemies than nothing to check their spread. There's a great

410
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 2: quote from point four, which reads quote I am not

411
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 2: a delicate woman, nor yet a squeamish man to be

412
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 2: shocked by their perpetual antics during the spring and summer.

413
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 2: Being something of an anatomist, I can stand it without embarrassment.

414
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: But all are not thus constituted.

415
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,679
Speaker 1: He also threw in another dig at Brewer, again without

416
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: naming him, quote, Let the authorities of any of our

417
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: large cities, preferably Boston, where the birds are said to

418
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: have done so much good, and where the sparrow combination

419
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 1: talks loudest, furnished to proper persons, say five hundred sparrows,

420
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: whose stomachs shall be examined by some competent botanist and

421
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: entomologist together. Cows ended the article by recommending that the

422
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: birds be left to take care of themselves, so people

423
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: should not feed them, put up bird houses to protect them,

424
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: or kill their predators, and he advised that any laws

425
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: protecting how sparrows should be repealed. That way, if, for example,

426
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: boy Scouts wanted to start a sparrow killing project, nothing

427
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: would get in their way. Cows was also.

428
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 2: Insulting Brewer in his personal correspondence on May nineteenth, eighteen

429
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 2: seventy nine, he sent Ja Allen the following poem quote,

430
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 2: there was an old person of Beacon Street, of whom

431
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 2: history itself doth repeat, that he stood on his head

432
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 2: till the sparrow's all said. It is quite an anonymous

433
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 2: feat that September Cows published on the present status of

434
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 2: Passer domesticus in America, with special reference to the Western

435
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 2: States and territories. This was sort of an annotated bibliography

436
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 2: of the Sparrow controversy, including his own publications Brewers and

437
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 2: that of several others. Cows makes his opinions about Brewer

438
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 2: very clear, for example, describing an anonymous piece that he

439
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 2: attributed to Brewer as quote one of doctor Brewer's most

440
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: amusing tirades, and Cows described his own the ineligibility of

441
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: the European House Sparrow in America as quote a general

442
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 2: statement of the case indicting the sparrow with specific charges

443
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 2: and recommendations. Yeah, just to be super clear, that's that piece.

444
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 2: We just read a bunch of really insulting passages from

445
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 2: where he insulted all kinds of people.

446
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: Listen, it's just a general statement of the case. Uh.

447
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 2: About four months after Cows published this article. Brewer died,

448
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 2: so unfortunately we don't have like a point by point

449
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 2: rebuttal from him. He passed away three years after that.

450
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 2: Cows accepted that it was not possible to eradicate the

451
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 2: house sparrow in North America, writing that he quote led

452
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 2: the sparrow war for twenty years that only surrendered to

453
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 2: the inevitable. Cows did not stop criticizing Brewer, though. In

454
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty nine, the USDA Division of Economic Ornithology and

455
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: Mammalogy issued its first bulletin, which was a four hundred

456
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 2: page report on what was then called the English sparrow.

457
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,360
Speaker 2: Cows didn't think the bulletin gave him enough credit, which

458
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: apparently revived his animosity toward Brewer. In eighteen ninety, a

459
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 2: new addition to his Key to North American Birds was published,

460
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 2: which revised the description of the house sparrow to include quote,

461
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 2: well informed persons denounce the bird without avail during the

462
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 2: years when it might have been abated. But further protest

463
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 2: is futile, for the sparrows have it all their own

464
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 2: way and can afford to le legislature like rats, mice, cockroaches,

465
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 2: and other parasites of the human race which we have imported.

466
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 2: In eighteen ninety seven, after becoming editor of an ornithology

467
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: magazine called The Osprey, Cows wrote a regular feature called

468
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 2: Doctor Cows's Column, and in one of those he called

469
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 2: Brewer quote a narrow minded, prejudiced, tactlest person. When people

470
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 2: criticized him as being in poor taste for writing that,

471
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 2: he doubled down, saying Quote, the harm he did was

472
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 2: incalculable and his name deserves to be stigmatized as long

473
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 2: as there is a sparrow left in the United States

474
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 2: to shriek Brewer Brewer Brewer, then Cows died two years later.

475
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 2: When Brewer and Cows were writing about the qualities and

476
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 2: behavior of how sparrows, both of them were mostly dealing

477
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 2: in anecdotes. Neither of them had much data to back

478
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 2: up the actual impact of these birds on North America.

479
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 2: It was true that the sparrows didn't eat as many

480
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 2: caterpillars sus expected, and that they ate grain and other crops,

481
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 2: and that they chirped a lot, and that they picked

482
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: seeds out of manure. It was also true that they

483
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 2: attacked and killed nesting birds, including bluebirds, and we know

484
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 2: today that they can carry diseases such as West Nile

485
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 2: virus and salmonella. But these same things are also true

486
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 2: of other birds, including other birds that are native to

487
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 2: North America. And when it comes to predation, so many

488
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 2: other animals also prey on nesting birds. But the response

489
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 2: to house sparrows became particularly hostile, and this was connected

490
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 2: to how people talked about them. In the nineteenth century,

491
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 2: people were describing house sparrows in much the same way

492
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 2: that they were describing human immigrants to the United States,

493
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 2: and this was a period of increasing nativism and xenophobia.

494
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 2: Both house sparrows and human immigrants were described as dirty

495
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 2: and lazy. They made too much noise, they had too

496
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 2: many babies. They were going to take over the country,

497
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 2: overwhelming the native bird population or the white population that

498
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 2: hailed from the so called right parts of Europe.

499
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: This was not just a coincidental use of similar language.

500
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: It was connected to how people saw these birds. For example,

501
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety seven, Elliot Cows co authored a book

502
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: called Citizen Bird, which was about birds and nature, but

503
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: also about values like citizenship. It used sparrows as an

504
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: example of bad citizens, including the passage quote they increased

505
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: very fast and spread everywhere, quarreling with and driving out

506
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: the good citizens who belonged to the regular birdland guilds,

507
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: taking their homes and making themselves nuisances. The wise men

508
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: protested against bringing these sparrows, but no one heeded their

509
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: warning until it was too late. Now it is decided

510
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,239
Speaker 1: that these sparrows are bad citizens and criminals, so they

511
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: are condemned by everyone.

512
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 2: This use of language was also connected to the eugenics movement,

513
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 2: so a while later and nineteen thirty for example, eugenicist

514
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 2: and conservationist C. M. Gaety equated immigration to the United

515
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 2: States from Mexico with the quote sparrow problem, describing the

516
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 2: quote songless immigrant as displacing American birds that were quote songsters,

517
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 2: insects destroyers, weed seed eaters. He continued by saying that

518
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 2: the quote old type American is similarly being displaced with

519
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: Mexican slum inhabitants.

520
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: As another example, architect Philip Johnson published an article titled

521
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: are we a Dying People in July of nineteen thirty nine,

522
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: by which point eugenics was falling out of favor in

523
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: the United States, but had been adopted and expanded by

524
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany. This article was about the idea that white

525
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: people were not having enough babies and that quote, the

526
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: United States of America is committing race suicide. It's said

527
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: in part quote. The course of nature is not predestined.

528
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: Human will is a part of the biological process us.

529
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: Our will, for example, interferes constantly in the world of

530
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: lower animals. When English sparrows threaten to drive out our songbirds,

531
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: we shoot the sparrows rather than letting nature and Darwin

532
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: take their course. Thus, the songbirds, thanks to our will,

533
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: become the fittest and survive. So of course, language like

534
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: this is still around today. It still shows up in

535
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: conversations about immigration, and it still shows up in conversations

536
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: about all kinds of non native species, including European starlings,

537
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: which were intentionally introduced to North America decades after how

538
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: sparrows were long after people had decided that the house

539
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: sparrows were a problem and should not have been introduced.

540
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: And people still have extremely strong feelings about how sparrows,

541
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to their killing other birds or

542
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: driving them from their nests. Today, how sparrows are widespread

543
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: over most of North America and part of South America,

544
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: umber seem to have declined in recent decades, and they

545
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: seem to be declining in Europe and Asia as well.

546
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: The reasons for this are not entirely clear. Some possibilities

547
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:13,800
Speaker 1: include disease, pollution, changing climate, and changes in the food

548
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: that is available to them. Also, we mentioned earlier in

549
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: the episode that John James Audubon had named a couple

550
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: of birds after Brewer. There's been an ongoing discussion about

551
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: renaming eponymously named birds in the United States. On November one,

552
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, the American Ornithological Society announced that it

553
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:37,399
Speaker 1: was committing to changing all English language bird names within

554
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 1: its jurisdiction for birds that are named after people or

555
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,280
Speaker 1: whose names are otherwise offensive or exclusionary. In the words

556
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: of the Society's Executive director and CEO, doctor Judas scarl Quote,

557
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: there has been historic bias in how birds are named

558
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: and who might have a bird named in their honor.

559
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: Exclusionary naming conventions developed in the eighteen hundreds, clouded by

560
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: racism and misogyny, don't work for us today, and the

561
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: time has come for us to transform this process and

562
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: redirect the focus to the birds where it belongs. I

563
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: don't know if there is a similar movement regarding animals,

564
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: but there is one at least that I know of,

565
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: which is the Cou's whitetailed deer, right, which is named

566
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: after Elliott Cows, but most people say it cous. So

567
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: if you know about these deer and you think we've

568
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: been saying his name wrong this whole time, uh, the

569
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: deer technically also pronounced cows, but nobody really says it

570
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: that way. This is how language evolves, which then brings

571
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: up a different thing of like, well, it might be

572
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: named after him, but no one calls it by his

573
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: actual name. Do we still need to change it?

574
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, uh, yeah, I don't know. And as I said,

575
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 2: I have no idea if there's been a similar discussion

576
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 2: about the names of non bird species. I have some

577
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:03,840
Speaker 2: listener made before we finish up today. This is from Shelley,

578
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 2: and Shelley wrote, Dear Holly and Tracy, I just listened

579
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 2: to your behind the scenes about the metric system and

580
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 2: had to write in I'm a middle school math and

581
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 2: science teacher, and the experiences about math classes both of

582
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 2: you shared really resonated with me, both from personal experience

583
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 2: and what I learned in grad school about the history

584
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: of math education in the US. Allie, what you shared

585
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 2: about the trauma of timed multiplication tests is a really

586
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 2: common experience. It's when most people in this country identify

587
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 2: as when I stopped liking math. Joe Baller, professor of

588
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:37,959
Speaker 2: mathematics education at Stanford, calls US a math traumatized nation

589
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 2: as a result of the emphasis on speed and memorization

590
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 2: over understanding for so many years in our education system.

591
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 2: I can tell you the day I started liking math.

592
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 2: It was the day we used the quadratic equation in

593
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 2: high school chemistry, because I finally saw both the purpose

594
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 2: of math and why it worked the way it did.

595
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: I also wanted.

596
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 2: To share this article by Joe Baller and Lang Chen

597
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 2: and The Atlantic, why kids should use their fingers in

598
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 2: math class. Tracy, I hope it helps you feel better

599
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 2: about using your fingers for arithmetic. They're one of the

600
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 2: best tools for math we as humans have. Thanks for

601
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 2: all the great work you do on the podcast The

602
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 2: History of Science episodes are my favorites. Cheers, Shelley. Thank

603
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 2: you so much, Shelley for this email. I had not

604
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:22,399
Speaker 2: seen that article and I was only able to kind

605
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 2: of skim it this morning, But man, boy, do I

606
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 2: wish there had been some encouragement about, you know, how

607
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:32,879
Speaker 2: to use your fingers to learn math better rather than

608
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 2: just like being yelled.

609
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 1: At to stop doing it. Right. Oh, I remember the

610
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: policing of it in one of my elementary school math

611
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: classes during a test where the teacher literally was like,

612
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: if I see you using your fingers under the desk,

613
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: you will fail the test. And it's like, yeah, you're

614
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: just thinking us all more scared of math, right. And

615
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: I have long suspected that one of the reasons I

616
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: had trouble with arithmetic is I really liked, like we

617
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,320
Speaker 1: would have little bears to count and sort into different

618
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: colors and things like that, and anything involved like counting

619
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,760
Speaker 1: the bears or counting numbers of things, like adding things

620
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: when there were objects there representing the things, right, that

621
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: was fine. But when I needed to move into the

622
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: abstract of doing it in my head, like I just

623
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: was not able to make that bridge very well. So

624
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sending that article. If anybody

625
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: else wants to google it again, and it's called why

626
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: kids should use their fingers in math class? If you

627
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: would like to send us a note about this or

628
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: any other podcast or at history Podcasts. At iHeartRadio dot com,

629
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: we're on social media and missed in History and you

630
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and

631
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you

632
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For

633
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

634
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M