X PREFACE 



The people of the United States have within 

 the past generation created national parks, state 

 parks, city parks, and made wild-life reservations, 

 recognizing their higher values to people, for their 

 uses in education, recreation, and hopefulness. I 

 wish that every park had a nature guide and that 

 every wild place might early become a park. 



There now are a number of Cabinet positions, 

 each with a secretary to control and direct its work. 

 But is it not time to have a Directory of Parks and 

 Recreation, something for all time and for all peo- 

 ple? Instead of one man directing this there 

 should be a number, a board of directors, who are 

 directly responsible to the public. This should be 

 a department separate from and independent of all 

 Cabinet positions and should outrank them. 



A number of these chapters were written es- 

 pecially for this book. I appreciate the courtesy 

 of the editors in allowing me to reproduce the 

 articles which appeared in the following maga- 

 zines: Snow-Blinded on the Summit, and Trees at 

 Timberline, in Country Life; Waiting in the Wil- 

 derness, Censored Natural History News, Winter 

 Mountaineering, Children of My Trail School, 

 and Thunder and Lightning, in The Saturday 

 Evening Post; A Day With a Nature Guide, in 

 The Outlook; Play and Pranks of Wild Folk, and 

 Naturalist Meets Prospector, in The American 

 Boy; The White Cyclone, in Outing; and Wind 

 Rapids on the Heights, in Harper s. 



