And he went off into another guffaw.
CHAPTER XII
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.
BITTERN