State Parks of Wisconsin 



If it is right for the State of Wisconsin to spend a million and a quar- 

 ter dollars on charitable and penal institutions, as it did in 1908, 

 made necessary in part at least by unfavorable physical and social 

 conditions, is it not wise and good to spend something on preventive 

 measures which would make such institutions less necessary? Who 

 questions nowadays that simple recreation in the open air amid beau- 

 tiful natural surroundings contributes to physical and moral health, 

 to a saner and happier life? These parks are the only security that 

 the future holds out for people of small means. In them worn-out 

 workers of the family and the little children could camp as they do 

 in the Interstate Park of the Hudson Palisades. "A mere autumn 

 walk on a wooded hillside," writes Frederic Harrison, "nourishes 

 brain, spirit, and body at once ; and opens up to us from all sources 

 together new well-springs of life." 



Here are six sound reasons for establishing a series of State Parks 

 in Wisconsin, the nucleus of a future great system covering the en- 

 tire State. Suppose they cost three or four hundred thousand dol- 

 lars. Could not Wisconsin afford to make the investment and would 

 the State not find them worth more than their cost? "Sixty years 

 ago," says Professor R. G. Thwaites in a volume just issued, "when 

 Wisconsin entered the Union, it was relatively a crude community. 

 It has slowly but surely advanced to the front rank of trans- Appal- 

 achian States. Fertile, healthful, and beautiful, with vast natural 

 resources as yet but slightly drawn upon, it has come to be recognized 



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