THE OUTDOOR TRAINING SCHOOL
Many girls think of outdoor life as of something to be enjoyed if they
have plenty of time. As a matter of course they take their daily bath.
But the outdoor exercise comes as an accessory. It is still
unfortunately true that boys more than girls take camp life for granted.
Yet girls, and students particularly, should realize that it is economy
of time to be out of doors. This they need both for their work and for
their health. Outdoor exercise, with its bath of fresh air and the
natural bath of freshly circulating blood it brings with it, its
training school for the whole girl, is as essential as the tub or sponge
bath. But how many of us think of it in that way?
To be outdoors is to have the nerves keyed to the proper pitch. If fresh
air is not a tonic to the nerves, then why is it that moodiness and
depression fall away as we walk or row or lie under the trees, and we
become saner and more serene? When one is depressed the best thing to do
is to go out of doors. Altogether aside from any formal wisdom of book
or student or teacher, there is wisdom with nature. _If the head is
tired, go out of doors! If the body is fagged, go out of doors! If the
heart is troubled, go out of doors!_ The life out there, as no life
indoors can, will make for health, for charity, for bigness. Petty
things fall away, and with nature equanimity and poise are found again.
It isn’t necessary to bother someone about woes real or imaginary. All
that is necessary is to get out among the trees and flowers, the sky and
clouds, the joyous birds and little creatures of field and wood, and
hear what they have to say. There will be no complaining among them,
even about very real difficulties.
A great deal is heard concerning hygiene in these days, the study of it,
the practice of it. The biggest university of hygiene in the world is
not within houses but outside, up that hillside where the trees are
blowing, in the doorway of our tent, on the lawn in front of the house,
out on the lake, even on a city house-top, and, last resort if
necessary, by an open window. One reason why many people are concerned
about this question of hygiene is because they know that not only are
human beings happier when they are well and strong, but also because a
healthy person is, nine times out of ten, more moral than one who is
sick or sickly. Ill health means offense of some kind, often one’s own,
against the laws of nature or society. We have, too, to pay for one
another’s faults. But life lived on sound physical principles, with
plenty of sunshine, cold water, exercise, wind, rain, simple food and
sensible clothing, is not likely to be sickly, useless or burdensome.
[Illustration: BITTERN]
[Illustration: LOON]
[Illustration: PARTRIDGE]
[Illustration: RED-BREASTED MERGANSER]
[Illustration: WOODCOCK]
[Illustration: MALLARD]
The body is not a mechanism to be disregarded, but an exquisitely made
machine to be exquisitely cared for. Nobody would trust an engineer to
run an engine he knows nothing about. Yet most of us are running our
engines without any knowledge of the machinery. Why should we excuse
ourselves for lack of knowledge and care when, for the same reasons a
chauffeur, for example, would be immediately dismissed? How many of us
know that the nerves are more or less dependent upon the muscles for
their tone? How many of us realize how important it is to keep in
perfect muscular condition? We sit hour after hour in our chairs, all
our muscles relaxed, bending over books, and begrudge one hour--it ought
to be three or four!--out of doors. The person who can run furthest
and swiftest is the one with the strongest heart. The person who can
work longest and to the greatest advantage is the one who has kept his
bodily health.... _It may be laid down as an absolute rule that any
individual can do more and better work when he is well than when he is
not in good physical condition._ Ceaseless activity is the law of nature
and the body that is resolutely active does not grow old as rapidly as
the one that is physically indolent.
Much out-of-door life, much camping, keep one young in heart, too. It
isn’t possible to grow old or sophisticated among such a wealth of
joyous, wholesome friendships as may be found in nature, where no
unclean word is ever heard and where no unfriendliness, no false pride,
no jealousy can exist. A great English poet, William Wordsworth, has
told us more of the shaping power of nature, its quickening spirit, its
power of restoration, than any other poet. It would be well for every
girl to take that wonderful poem “Tintern Abbey” out of doors and read
it there. Wordsworth, still a very young man when he wrote it, tells how
he loved the Welsh landscape and the tranquil restoration it had brought
him
“’mid the din
Of towns and cities.”
A higher gift he acknowledges, too, when through the harmony and joy of
nature he had been led to see deeply “into the life of things.”
There is something the matter with a girl who hasn’t an appetite, as
sharp as hunger, to escape from her books and camp out of doors. If
outdoor life cannot engross her wholly at times, banishing all thoughts
of work, then she should make an effort to forget books and everything
connected with them for a while. A young girl ought to be skillful in
all sorts of outdoor accomplishments, rowing, swimming, riding and
driving if possible, canoeing, skating, sailing a boat, fishing,
hunting, mountain climbing.
Fortunately there is more of the play-spirit connected with outdoor life
than there used to be. Both school and college have fostered this
wholesome attitude. If a girl doesn’t like active sports she should
cultivate a love for them. You can always trust a person who is
accomplished in physical ways, for anyone who has led an intelligent
out-of-door life is more self-reliant. Her faculty for doing things, her
inventiveness, her poise, her “nerve” are all strengthened. I recall an
instance of this “faculty” and inventiveness. We were on a wild Maine
lake when an accident happened to the canoe, a necessity to our return,
for we were far away from all sources of help. Apparently there was
nothing with which to mend it. But our Indian guide found there
everything he needed ready for his use. He scraped gum off a tree, he
cut a piece of bark, and then he rummaged about until he discovered an
old wire. With these things he securely mended a big hole. Oftentimes it
seems as if the very appliances with which city children are provided
tend to make them incapable.
[Illustration: YELLOWBIRD]
[Illustration: FIELD SPARROW]
[Illustration: SONG SPARROW]
[Illustration: GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH]
[Illustration: CHIPPING SPARROW]
[Illustration: WOOD THRUSH]
[Illustration: HERMIT THRUSH]
[Illustration: SWAINSON’S THRUSH]
[Illustration: WILSON’S THRUSH]
[Illustration: PHŒBE BIRD]
[Illustration: SCARLET TANAGER]
[Illustration: MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT]
[Illustration: BLUEBIRD]
[Illustration: WREN]
[Illustration: BLUE JAY]
[Illustration: CHICKADEE]
[Illustration: RUBYTHROAT]
[Illustration: WHIP-POOR-WILL]
[Illustration: NIGHT HAWK]
[Illustration: SCREECH OWL]
The girl who lives out of doors acquires unlimited resourcefulness.
Outdoor life quickens and sharpens the perception. And for the girl to
have her power of observation sharpened is worth a great deal. The
capacity for accurate and quick observation education from books does
not always develop. One must go back to nature for that, one must live
out in the woods and fields all one can, one must be able to tell the
scent of honeysuckle from the scent of the rose, and know the fragrance
of milkweed even before that homely weed is seen, and know spruce,
balsam and white pine even as one knows a friend. Eyes must be able to
detect the differences not only in colors and shapes of birds, but in
their flight, and ears know every song of wood and field. Then the
services of beauty, its music, its color, its form, will be always about
us and nature’s health and strength and beauty become our own, not only
her gaiety and “vital feelings of delight,” but also her restraint upon
weakness, and her kindling to the highest life--the life that is
spiritual.
[Illustration: BLACK SPRUCE]
[Illustration: BALSAM FIR]
[Illustration: WHITE PINE]
[Illustration: BLACK OAK]
[Illustration: BEECH]
[Illustration: LARCH]
[Illustration: BIRCHES]
[Illustration: CHESTNUT]
[Illustration: HORSE CHESTNUT]
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN MAPLE]