It also teaches very early self-reliance, and a philosophical endurance of many conditions of life, which add to one’s cheerfulness, while one is surprised how few of the necessities are essential to produce happiness.
“Man’s rich with little, were his judgment true;
Nature is frugal, and her wants are few.”
The study also of natural history in the woods takes one into a realm which has no bounds, constantly enlarging his love and admiration of God’s works. The oft-repeated quotation, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” has been misconstrued for many a long day, and if I had known early in life its real significance it would hardly have made so doleful an impression.
There is no doubt to-day in my mind that this “rod” meant a fishing-rod, and that the timely cherishing of it in youth tends to develop that portion of one’s nature to which the former use was entirely innocent.
“The surest road to health, say what you will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.”