injunction that lie must never allow his fly book to cause 

 neglect of his school books. 



Many born anglers have been driven almost to des- 

 peration, their minds and bodies suffering from the afore- 

 said misapplication of the rule and the rod. Give the 

 schoolboy a good hook and line and rod, w^ith occasional 

 holidays for their use, and if he is of the right sort he 

 will not " play hookey," nor will he miss his lines, or 

 require the use of the rod in the school room. If parents 

 and pedagogues would learn that there are times in the training 

 of boys when a rod in the hand is worth two on the back, and 

 that there are valuable lessons in the running brooks as well as in 

 books, the world would be better and brighter. 



Recreation is not merely amusement and relief from toil. In 

 its best form — as for example, in angling — recreation literally re- 

 creates both mind and body; mental troubles vanish and bodily ills 

 mysteriously depart under the soothing influence of the forest 

 shade and the pleasant song of the brook. Nature is the true 

 healer, and the fishing rod is a magic wand to be waved over the 

 waters, for mortal man will never come nearer the perennial Fount- 

 ain of Youth than when he stands upon the brink of some crystal 

 trout pool, or close to a circling eddy, where the salmon leaps. 



Any angler can vouch for the fact that it is not all of fishing 

 to fish. The alternate effects of sun and shade, the sights and sounds 

 along sylvan shores, the balmy breeze, the odors of pine and balsam and 

 the wild flowers of the wilderness — all these and a thousand other things 

 only incidentally connected with fishing bring health and happiness to 

 the ardent angler. In the words of Sir Edgerton Brydges : 



" It is a mingled rapture, and we find 

 The bodily spirit mounting to the mind." 



No other out-door pastime is so free from noise, tiu'moil and con- 

 fusion; so calm and peaceful, in the intervals or interludes of the 

 play — the periods between expectation and realization — when the chirp 

 )f' the^jjprfcket. and the carol of birds relieve rather than break the 

 lence^^nd the angler rejoices in moments of meditation, 

 quietly communes with the silent voices of Nature. 

 ,. . ..{ileasant ballad entitled The Angler's Song, quaint 

 ^1^. Wa. — as he signs himself at the end of the Epistle 

 iCatory of the " Compleat Angler " — the charm of 

 filing as a contemplative pastime is thus set forth : 



