770 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



has the power to quicken a sense of interest like the subject of natural 

 Hfe. 



Every parcel of land suitable should produce its quota of wild life 

 in the national interest. Those who question this policy have but to 

 analyze the possibilities in its use, both direct and indirect. There 

 are many men who feel the benefits from the association in the game 

 fields, the fishing waters or the natural history areas of the country. 



The boy who has received a lesson in fair play by being punished 

 for shooting quail on the ground will never forget it. Those parents 

 who have taken a delicate child into the open and stimulated a healthy 

 development of mind and body by arousing an interest in the birds 

 and animals of the region, may not fully appreciate the value of the 

 wild life, though they are grateful to God for the development of their 

 child. I know a father who is particularly proud of the fact that his 

 small boy has, through an interest created by the parent while upon 

 walks in the parks and the open grounds around town, developed the 

 power of observation in identifying the tracks of birds and animals. 

 There was a child whose parents were at a loss to develop itg character 

 and overcome the weakness of timidity. An opportunity offered to 

 interest the child in the life habits of several chipmunks at a mountain 

 camp. The lesson taught here was that these little animals, so much 

 smaller than the child and thrown on their own resources, existed in 

 bright happy lives protected by Divine providence. 



I want to emphasize the point that association with the life in the 

 open tends to develop those finer sensibilities together with the traits 

 of characer with which they are associated. That child or adult who 

 has learned to understand nature's laws will face life with an acute- 

 ness of understanding and a quickness of sympathy, in fact, a bigness 

 of soul that nothing else will develop. 



In Rockwell Kent's book, "Wilderness," there is the following 

 statement : 



*T think that while cruelty appears upmost where boys herd to- 

 gether, the love of animals is no less characteristic of many sensitive 

 children. But this I am certain, that nothing will make a child more 

 ridiculous in the eyes of a mob child than this most perfect and most 

 beautiful attitude of some children towards life. In considering the 

 education of a child and weighing what is gained or lost by one system 

 or another, I am inclined to think that no gain can outweigh the loss 

 to the child of this loving non-predatory impulse. 



