The Child and the Forest 



By Herbert A. Smith 

 Assistant Forester, U. S. Forest Service 



The forest is a part of the natural heritage of childhood. 

 If the heritage is cut off, life is that much poorer. I am thinking 

 of a very small boy in southern New England half a century ago, 

 and of the mysterious woods, challenging, drawing, yet a little 

 terrifying. New England theology formidably expounded in 

 the white-walled "meeting house" with its sky-pointing steeple, 

 provided no place for pagan Pan, but the dim temple of the woods 

 gave him sanctuary . You could feel him though you knew nothing of 

 him — a touch of his" panic' ' fear lurked in the shades, calling for some 

 stoutness of childish heart to tread the unknown, enticing play- 

 ground. 



But what a playground! You left the dusty, familiar road, 

 passed through an old orchard and across an open hayfield,and 

 climbed the high-reared barrier of a stone wall, to look from its 

 summit into the leafy aisles amongst the big chestnuts, oak, 

 and hickories of an upland wood. Or you went down the cowpaths 

 wandering in the sweet fern, bay, and low huckleberry bushes of 

 the pasture-lot to the dense tangle of tree growth through which 

 crept a stream. There rank skunk cabbage and high "brakes" 

 hid the oozy ground. You knew where that stream came out 

 to the friendly road, to run under an old wooden bridge on whose 

 stringers the phoebe-bird built. It was rumored — you did not 

 quite know whether to believe anything so wonderful — there were 

 brook trout in that stream for those who knew how to fish for them, 

 as well as the entrancing minnows you might angle for in sunny 

 pools with bent pin. And when happily weary at the end of a long 

 summer's day, you watched the sun sink down in the glowing 

 clouds to the horizon's rim, it was a wooded rim. The edge of 

 your known world — and the forests going on and on. What 

 lay within it, or beyond? 



These things and many more I think of when I ask myself 

 what the forest meant to one country-reared boy who wotild not 

 for much fine gold surrender his share in the great heritage. 

 I am not a school teacher ; and I recognize this is a day in which 



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