CHAPTER VII 



NATIONAL PARKS SYSTEM A UNIVERSITY OF 



NATURE 



AvlONG so many reservational land holdings of 

 such a people as ours, it would have been strange 

 had not one, at least, principally expressed other as- 

 pirations than attainment of prosperity and occa- 

 sional relaxation from the labor of producing it. 

 There are other important objectives than these in 

 our national life. 



The National Parks System was born of the 

 instinct to preserve for all time extraordinary beauty 

 and majesty of native landscape in original unmodi- 

 fied record; it was developed by the genius of the 

 people, without conscious planning, through a gen- 

 eration and a half of park making; this product an- 

 alyzed, its purpose and its standards were formu- 

 lated for the conscious upbuilding of the future. 

 The System is thus revealed a unique expression of 

 the combined idealism and practicality which makes 

 this nation great. 



National Parks are areas of original unmodi- 

 fied natural conditions, each the finest possible ex- 

 ample of its kind in the country, preserved as a sys- 

 tem from all industrial use. 



Thus they unmistakably differ physically from 

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