84 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
influence. A good camp is composed 
of youthful, selected personalities. It 
is a sort of melting pot to mint the 
best youthful characteristics. One can- 
not analyze every psychological or 
physical phase of the problem. There 
are other things in life in the same 
category. 
You are laboring under a loving de- 
lusion when you think you are all in 
all to your child. “I could not bear to 
have her away from me. She knows 
that mother is the best friend she has 
in the world.” That may be true, yet 
the fond mother has her limitations. 
There are many things that she cannot 
do to that child and when she attempts 
to take the entire responsibility the 
greater the danger of doing injury to 
her beloved daughter. “It would be 
absolute cruelty to her and to me to 
take my daughter away from me for 
two months in the summer,” exclaims 
the fond mother. “You do not know 
what companions we are and what 
good times we have in each other’s 
company.” 
Oil, yes, I do. I know all about it. 
One of the defects of human nature is 
to think that the whole world centers 
in us. I have felt in that same way. I 
thought that in many things the cogs 
would get blocked and wedged if I was 
not around to manage the machine. It 
comes as a painful mental jolt to learn 
that much as I am appreciated certain 
others are appreciated even more. I 
was once talking with a fond mother 
about her personal relation to her 
daughter, and how her daughter adored 
her. . A few minutes later she called 
the daughter into the room. I wish I 
could have taken a photograph of the 
look of astonishment that came into 
that mother’s face when the daughter 
expressed in emphatic terms her un- 
willingness to go that summer to the 
country home but her special desire to 
accompany Daddy Bigelow to camp. 
The mother was appalled. “Do you 
mean to say that you would rather go 
with him than with your father and 
me to our summer home, and have all 
the parties and everything else that we 
would give you?” When the girl left 
the room I said, “She has come to one 
of the turning points in her life. If I 
may paraphrase all that she has said, 
‘Now, dear mother, when I was a baby, 
I thought like a baby and you treated 
me like a babv. but now I have become 
a girl and I like to do things for my- 
self in a girlish way like other girls.’ ” 
That is all there is to it. The mother 
had no reason to think the daughter 
was rejecting her affection. The girl 
appreciated her mother as much as 
ever, even more perhaps, but she was 
entering upon a new era when she did 
not want to be led around at the end 
of an apron string. She wanted to do, 
think, act for herself. That was some 
two years ago. The girl’s development 
has been all that any fond mother and 
father could have desired. It has been 
a delight, because both parents had the 
good sense to learn then and there that 
they were not as important as they 
imagined for the development of that 
girl. They accepted the condition in 
the right spirit and in the words of the 
novel, “They lived happily ever after- 
wards.” 
No amount of parental love can 
compensate her for the loss of young 
companionship. Bread may be the staff 
of l.fe but other things are needed to 
make the handle to the staff. Home in- 
fluence, school-teachers are necessary, 
so far as they go, but there are other 
concomitants as necessary, and any 
parent who can afford it yet deprives 
a girl of two months in a camp is un- 
consciously, through her mistaken af- 
fection, depriving that daughter of one 
of the most important conditions of 
development of girl nature. 
There is another argument equally 
fallacious and no less subtle. “Oh, 
yes, I know, Mr. Bigelow. You are a 
naturalist and think all the world 
swings around trees and birds, flowers, 
bugs and such things and, yes, I will 
give you credit for outdoor life in gen- 
eral.” Then comes that delightful smile 
intended to clinch the argument, “I 
agree with you perfectly. From my 
childhood I have adored all those 
things and realized the value they have 
been to me and am thoroughly deter- 
mined not to deprive my daughter of 
the benefits of any of them. So every 
summer we take her to our country 
home where are the most picturesque 
roads you have ever seen ; she has a 
pony to ride ; the governess takes her 
into the back yard and lets her play in 
a nice tent that we got especially for 
her. You should come and see the de- 
lights of that little tent in our back 
yard. She has the sweetest governess 
in the world and they are as fond of 
