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.
YELLOWBIRD
FIELD SPARROW
GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH