Part 22 (1/2)
A fragrant beehive or a plump, healthy hornet's nest in good running order often become object lessons of some importance. The inhabitants can give the child pointed lessons in punctuation, as well as caution and some of the limitations as well as the grand possibilities of life; and by even a brief experience with a good patch of healthy nettles, the same lesson will be still further impressed upon them. And thus by each new experience with homely natural objects the child learns self-respect and also to respect the objects and forces which must be met.
The wild gardens of Nature are the best kindergartens. The child who breathes the pure air among the pines, and plays among the birds and flowers, has the greatest of advantages. The child stirred with ideal hopes to-day will create n.o.bly to-morrow. Children from Nature's Book and School stand highest in the examinations of life and carry life's richest treasures: health, individuality, sincerity, wholesome self-reliance, and efficiency. Touched with nature, they are natural and, like Tiny Tim, they love everybody. Nature wins the heart of childhood. Children playing and dreaming in outdoor fairylands make one of the sweetest, dearest stories lived or learned on Nature's loving breast.
One of the best lessons gained from the wholesome atmosphere of the Parks is the duty of preserving natural beauties. We need Parks to prevent the extermination of our friends the wild flowers. A few years ago the following simple appeal for the wild flowers was written for me by Maud Gardner Odel:--
What will you with our bodies, Rude Ravishers of flowers, Despoiler of our loveliness To please your idle hours?
The life you pluck so gayly Will perish in a day; The form you praise so lightly, Turn swiftly to decay; But leave us on our hillside With wind and bird and bee, Insure us our inheritance Of immortality,-- Your sons shall know our fragrance, Your daughters feel our charm.
Oh, Friend of Future Ages, Do not the Wild Flowers harm!
Columbine, Gentian, Iris, and Others.
Photographs made in National Parks could be used in homes, schools, hotels, etc.; they might well displace many of the pictures now in use. These photographs should embrace the grander scenes and the lovelier landscapes. Among the subjects handled would be the Big Trees, Yellowstone Falls, Yosemite Falls, the Grand Canon, wild flowers and glaciers on Mount Rainier, the lakes in Glacier National Park, timber-line in the Rocky Mountain National Park, Crater Lake, and the ruins in the Mesa Verde. Among the animals pictured would be the grizzly bear, the mountain sheep, the mountain goat, the antelope, and the beaver; among the birds, the water-ouzel, the solitaire, the canon wren, the eagle, the hummingbird, and the ptarmigan.
We need to know our country. Purposeful travel is educational. Our National Parks should stimulate travel, and a trip to them is an educational advantage to any one making it. One can hardly be especially interested in any single feature of these Parks without also becoming acquainted with others.
Each year every city should honor itself by sending a number of individuals to study one or more of these Parks. Each school should send its brightest pupil; chambers of commerce might send representatives; women's clubs, D.A.R. organizations, and even the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. might well be represented in such a delegation.
This custom would give us nation-wide knowledge and sympathy.
It appears impossible to exaggerate the importance of knowing our wilderness lands--the frontier of yesterday.
During all the years--the long centuries between cave and cottage--our good ancestors ever traveled among Nature's inspiring pictured scenes.
With interest and with awe they watched the silent movements of the clouds across the sky; they heard with speechless wonder the mysterious echo that lived and mimicked in the viewless air; they puzzled over the strange, invisible wind that shook the excited trees and whispered in the rustling gra.s.s. They saw the wondrous sunrise; the light of day; the darkness; the fireflies in the forest; the lonely, changing moon. They heard the echoing crash of thunder.
Lightning,--the branched golden river in the cloud mountains of the sky,--the clouds themselves, and the silken rainbow, were woven into beautiful myths. Thus, through changing seasons and the pa.s.sing years, these splendid facts and fancies in Mother Nature's school fired the imagination with poetic wonder-tales and built the brain for our restless, triumphant race. The pathway to the Heroic Age lies out with Nature.
XXII
WHY WE NEED NATIONAL PARKS
The Piute Indians have a legend which says that just at the close of creation the woman was consulted. She at once called into existence the birds, the flowers, and the trees. That is the kind of a woman with whom to start a world. We still need park places full of hope and beauty, with birds, flowers, and trees, that with their help we may live long and happily and harmoniously upon a beautiful world.
Scenic parts of this poetic and primeval world--parts rich in loveliness and grandeur--are saved for us in our National Parks. The National Parks and Monuments are filled with Nature's masterpieces, and contain splendid scenic and scientific features not elsewhere to be seen. The traveler might spend a lifetime in them without exhausting even their best attractions.
A National Park is an island of safety in this riotous world. Splendid forests, the waterfalls that leap in glory, the wild flowers that charm and illuminate the earth, the wild sheep of the sky-line crags, and the beauty of the birds, all have places of refuge which parks provide.
A National Park is a fountain of life. It is a matchless potential factor for good in national life. It holds within its magic realm benefits that are health-giving, educational, economic; that further efficiency and ethical relations, and are inspirational. Every one needs to play, and to play out of doors. Without parks and outdoor life all that is best in civilization will be smothered. To save ourselves, to prevent our peris.h.i.+ng, to enable us to live at our best and happiest, parks are necessary. Within National Parks is room--glorious room--room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve.
Nature, like our best friends, will have us do our best. King Lear led the typical purposeless indoor life. He was surrounded with pomp and senseless ceremony. He was in the midst of enemies of sincerity and individuality. He decayed. He was turned outdoors. Across the stormy moor he wandered, followed by his faithful Fool. At the door of the hovel he hesitated. Urged by the Fool, he agreed to take shelter inside. In a brief time with Nature on the moor he had become acquainted with himself and had developed universal sympathy. Standing in the storm at the entrance to the hovel, he uttered this n.o.ble cry of compa.s.sion:--
”Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these?”
National Parks provide climate for everybody and scenery for all. If we play in the scenes where fairies live, for us all will be right with the world. Parks give purpose, n.o.ble purpose, to life. They are the ”Never-Never-Land” in which we shall ever be growing, but never grow up.
The great peaks with age-old ice and snow, the mountain-high waterfalls that rush and roar, the waveless lakes that show the cloud and the blue, the waves of wind that shake the steadfast trees, the songs of birds that ring through the wilderness, the many-colored flowers and glorious sunsets--these waken and inspire us. We are glad to be living, and life's duties are done with happiest hands. We need these enchanted places. I am thankful to the pioneers who saw the wilderness scenes and were thoughtful enough to save the National Parks for us.
Robert Louis Stevenson says, ”A man's most serious business is his amus.e.m.e.nts”; and some one else has said:--