Playing in the outdoors—especially when there is intimate association with birds and flowers, trees and waterfalls, mountains and storms—is one of the best ways of training the senses. The study of geology and glaciology, of the manners and customs of the beaver and the bear, gives physical and mental and spiritual development of the best possible kind. The outdoors gives originality and individuality, and develops that master quality called the creative faculty, with which usually are found associated courage and wholesome self-reliance.
Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, says:—
The best part of all human knowledge has come by exact and studied observation made through the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The most important part of education has always been the training of the senses through which that best part of knowledge comes. This training has two precious results in the individual besides the faculty of accurate observation—one the acquisition of some sort of skill, the other the habit of careful reflection and measured reasoning which results in precise statement and record.
The pioneer men and women, and the children of pioneers, had few books, but they were wide-awake people and made excellent neighbors. Scores of great men and women with character as well as intelligence have known little of books, but they had the ability to think—they had individuality. They had courage and kindness.
Mother Nature is ever ready to train the growing child. By using our wonderful National Parks for schools, we may give the boys and girls of to-day even better nature training than the pioneers received from their environment. Huxley says, "Knowledge gained at second hand from books or hearsay is infinitely inferior in quality to knowledge gained at first hand by direct observation and experience with Nature."
Many of the noblest pages of history were made by grand men and women whom Nature inspired. A poet says that all grand and heroic deeds were conceived in the open air. A nation composed of park-using people is prepared for the emergencies of war and also for the finer achievements of peace. Park life will keep the nation young.
Some of our thoughtful people are saying, "Better playgrounds without schools than schools without playgrounds." The Parks used as a part of the school system should develop, enrich, and equip with happy, helpful material the growing mind of man.
In "The Training of the Human Plant," Luther Burbank says:—
Any form of education which leaves one less able to meet every-day emergencies and occurrences is unbalanced and vicious, and will lead any people to destruction.
Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, waterbugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries, and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education.