EDUCATION 539 



the awakening of new and more meaningful values, will learn a per- 

 sonal dedication and establish a more worthy set of goals in his life. 

 He will begin to "see where he is going" and thus measure his life 

 in terms of what it can be and what it can do for others. 



Facilities for permitting boys and girls not only to visit, but live in 

 a natural setting for periods of not less than three days are needed 

 are necessary for full development of these values and attitudes. 

 The scene can be mountain slope, prairie hill, stream bank, forest, 

 or plain the exact topography does not matter and no one has the 

 advantage. For any land type, if left in a nearly natural state can 

 become the breeding place of concepts and a greater awareness of 

 beauty. 



2. Conservation guides and manuals must be written with a new 

 emphasis on a field of conservation hitherto almost completely ig- 

 nored the conservation of natural beauty. Soil, forests, water, and 

 the other examples of physical conservation are readily taught 

 (though not always realistically) but the conservation of an undis- 

 turbed heritage remains almost totally absent in the curriculum of 

 our schools because it is almost totally absent in our textbooks and 

 teaching guides. 



3. Teachers must be assisted in their own appreciation of the 

 outdoors and its meanings and values so that they can properly take 

 youngsters and open their eyes eyes deadened by ugliness. These 

 teachers must be taken into the field by proven master teachers from 

 their own ranks. It will be a job not easily done which explains 

 why it has not often been tried but it will be a job singularly pro- 

 ductive in the education of boys and girls who become aware of the 

 true inherent values of natural beauty and carry on to their adult 

 life a continued program of activities to maintain or restore beauty. 



4. Appropriate courses in considering the aesthetic values must be 

 initiated in teacher-training colleges courses perhaps taught by 

 scientists themselves, those who understand more of the world about 

 us and possess the ability to communicate the facts for appreciation of 

 beauty. 



Such a program, involving steps as outlined above, if superimposed 

 on the elementary years of our youngsters, will gradually rise upward 

 as these children grow into adulthood, carrying their ideas and ideals 

 along with them. Then the preservation and restoration of beauty 

 need not be only taught concepts, but practiced ideals. . . . 



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