FORTIETH ANNUAL REPORT. 31 



from the beginuiug of this convention, and you will continue to do so 

 until the end. I would like to talk about love as the ruling sentiment 

 of the world and the danger that menaces the American home, which is 

 the unit of our civilization, when love grows cold or is buried by com- 

 mercialism. But that is another subject. So I hope you will bear with 

 me for a little while as I chat with you about play. 



My first experience with things in this world was living in a log house 

 just a few steps from the Menominee River, by a rambling path through 

 the woods. That Avas my playground for ten years. I knew the names 

 of the trees; I knew the peculiar things that grew in certain localities 

 and under certain trees. I knew where the wild egg plum was; I knew 

 where the best thorn apples grew; I knew where to dig for angle worms; 

 I knew the curves in the stream where the fishing was, and I knew the 

 extreme pleasure of sitting on the bank of the river and dangling my 

 feet in the water. I was not much of a philosopher — a child is rarely 

 that- — but I was an observer, as all children are observers, and because 

 this is so they are entitled to the best that we can give them in the way 

 of places to see things and enjoy them. 



I have forgotten most of the things that happened in the school room 

 during those five years — the last of the ten ; I remember one teacher 

 in particular above all the others, and she was the one who took us 

 to the Avoods. I do not remember very much of what she taught in the 

 school room, but I do remember many things she taught me outside of 

 the school in that playground along the river. 



We came to Michigan when I was 10 years old, and a little way from 

 my home Avas Plaster Creek, a small stream perhaps twenty miles long. 

 That stream Avas m^- playground during the next six or eight years and 

 Avith my companions, who had similar tastes, we traversed that creek 

 bottom. We kncAV the individuality of a great many trees, the location 

 particularly of the sycamore that had been eaten out by decay and pro- 

 vided a safe retreat for us on every occasion when it rained. We knew 

 the deep hole which Avas afterward turned into a swimming place in 

 summer and skating rink in winter; we knew the kinds of fish that 

 made their home in that creek. We CA-en had a boat and paddled up the 

 stream for miles and enjoyed each summer the beauties of that most 

 delightful natural playground. 



The Menominee River watershed for miles and miles was covered with 

 a beautiful growth of timber in those early days, with all the delightful 

 accompaniments of the woods; the banks of this river are now as bare 

 as your hand. The farms i*un close down to the border of the stream; 

 there is no v/aste land. The farmers could not afford to leave a single 

 tree along the border of the river, and the playground that was my 

 delight is no more. This playground should have been preserved for one 

 hundred times as many children Avho live near that border today. There 

 is absolutely nothing that will take its place in the child's heart. 



The second stream. Plaster Creek, that gave me this joy in abundance 

 so many beautiful days in the year has almost nothing now in the way 

 of tree growth from its source to its confluence with Grand River, and 

 instead of being the beautiful evenflowing stream through the year, as 

 in my childhood, it is now a most fitful affair, full to the brim and run- 

 ning over at times, yet most of the year it is only a trickling rill that a 

 boy can easily vault over without wetting his feet. When I was a boy 



