"No nation has ever fallen through having too many parks.  We may have too many soldiers, too many indoor functions, too many exclusive social sets, but the United States Government, or any other, will never fall for having too many national parks."

"Scenery is perishable -- is easily ruined.  The better parts of the scenery are birds, flowers and trees.  These are easily despoiled.  No work, no public service, is more noble than that of the Park extension and improvement which now presses us."

"The forester is always the lumberman, the park man a practical poet...  The forester must cut his trees before they become over-ripe or his crop will waste, while the park man wants the groves to become aged and picturesque.  The forester pastures cattle in his meadows, while the park man has only people and romping children among his wildflowers.  The park needs the charm of primeval nature, and should be free from ugliness, artificiality and commercialism."

"These trees are not to fall.  They are to stand.  In parks, we have provided for trees a refuge with ourselves.  They are to live on, and with them we shall build stately mansions of the soul."

"One touch of forest nature makes the world kin.  A tree is the flag of Nature, and forests give a universal feeling on good will.  In the boundless forest the boundary-lines of nations are forgotten.  Some time an immortal pine may be the flag of a united and peaceful world."

"It may be, if we quit shooting animals on one side of a Park boundary-line, that in due time we shall become sufficiently civilized to stop killing people on the other side of a national boundary-line."

"In the past we have greatly underrated the mental powers of animals.  An intimate association with the wild life in the Parks will probably convince most people that wild animals have the power to think and reason.  It may also acquaint people with the fact that animals as well as human beings possess the traits of love, hatred, jealousy, anger and revenge.  Any one who associates much with wild life will discover the exceptional keenness of animal senses."

"Nature is good at all times.  Rainy days, gray days, windy days, all have something for you not ordinarily offered.  So, too, have the sunny winter days when upon the dazzling snow fall, the deep-blue shadows of the pines.  Forget the season and the weather; visit the Parks when you can stay there longest."

"By moonlight the mountainous National Parks are enchanted lands.  There is gentleness, a serenity and a softness that is never known in daylight."

"Nature is an educational stimulus of rare force.  The crumbling cliff, the glacial landscape, the wild, free clouds, birds and trees, compel children -- old and young -- to observe and think.  They bring development and sympathy.  They build the brain.  They increase courage and kindness.  Scenes and sunsets, cloud and storm, the stars and the sky, the music of wind and water, the purple forests, the white cascades, the colored flowers, the songs of the birds, the untrimmed and steadfast trees, the shadows on the ground, the tangled grass, the round, sunny hills, the endless streams, the magic rainbow, and the mysterious echo -- all these arouse thought, wonder and delight in the mind of every child; and they have been the immortal nourishment of the great souls who have come from Mother Nature's loving breast to bless and beautify the world."

"Go into the Parks and get their encouragement.  Among the serene and steadfast scenes you will find the paths of peace and a repose that is sweeter than sleep.  If you are dulled and dazed with the fever and the fret, or weary and worn, -- tottering under burdens too heavy to bear, -- go back to the old outdoor home.  Here Nature will care for you as a mother for a child.  In the mellow-lighted forest aisles, beneath the beautiful airy arches of limbs and leaves, with the lichen-tinted columns of gray and brown, with the tongueless eloquence of the bearded, veteran trees, amid the silence of centuries, you will come into your own."

"In our great National Parks we have an unrivaled outdoor school that is always open; in it is a library, a museum, a zoological garden, and a type of the wilderness frontier.  In this school-children are brought into contact with actual things, and become personally acquainted with useful facts, instead of merely reading about them."

"One of the greatest inheritances of each individual is imagination.  The child instinctively believes in fairies.  Unfortunately, the imagination too often stifled and extinguished in childhood.  It lights the path of education and throws changing color and romance over every act and scene in life.  It gives a magic spell to existence.  This matchless torch may be set blazing by a visit to the wonderland of a National Park where wilderness is kind -- where the fairies live."

"Often, the chief incentive that starts a child toward the acquiring of an education is interest in this fairyland of Nature. Interest is the high road to education.  Interest the mind and it will grow like a garden."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The wild gardens of Nature are the best kindergartens.  The child who breathes the pure air among the pines, and plays among the birds and flowers, has the greatest of advantages.  The child stirred with ideal hopes to-day will create nobly to-morrow."

"A National Park is an island of safety in this riotous world.  Splendid forests, the waterfalls that leap in glory, the wild flowers that charm and illuminate the earth, the wild sheep of the sky-line crags, and the beauty of the birds, all have places of refuge which parks provide."

"A National Park is a fountain of life.  It is a matchless potential factor for good in national life.  It holds within its magic realm benefits that are health-giving, educational, economic; that further efficiency and ethical relations, and are inspirational.  Every one needs to play, and to play out of doors.  without parks and outdoor life all that is best in civilization will be smothered.  To save ourselves, to prevent our perishing, to enable us to live at our best and happiest, parks are necessary."

"National Parks provide climate for everybody and scenery for all.  If we play in the scenes where fairies live, for us all will be right with the world.  Parks give purpose, noble purpose, to life.  They are the 'Never-Never-Land' in which we shall ever be growing, but never grow up."

"How and where people play determines the character of individuals and the destiny of their country.  Success in life-work depends upon play and relaxation.  Blue Monday did not originate outdoors."

"The better and stronger nation of the future will be a park-using nation.  Many wrecked nations have tried to get along without outdoor parks and recreation-places.  It is but little less than folly to spend millions on forts and warships, on prisons and hospitals, instead of giving people the opportunity to develop and rest in the sane outdoors."

"The intensity of love for native land depends chiefly upon the loveliness of its landscapes -- upon its scenery.  The great scenic places of a land should be owned by the public and often seen by the public.  Beauty satisfies the world's great longing.  Hatred and prejudice may be taught, but the love of land must be inspired -- and inspired by the scenic loveliness of that land."

"Develop National Parks, and there is no danger that the people will fail to use them."

"The Parks have the power to change and better the habits of a nation.  They may arouse in us the desire to spend most of our spare time, and lead to the fashion of holding most of our social gatherings, outside."

"These wilderness empires of our National Parks have been snatched from leveling forces of development.  They are likely to prove the richest, noblest heritage of the nation.  Here the world is at play, here are scenes ever new and that will greatly help to keep the nation young."

"No nation has ever fallen for having too much scenery."

"Not only do the Parks contain some of the world's sublimest and most beautiful scenes, but each Park is a wild-life reservation, a plane where guns are forbidden.  Thus protected, these wildernesses will remain forever wild, forever mysterious and primeval, holding for the visitor the spell of the outdoors, exciting the spirit of exploration.  Within them will survive that poetic million-year-old highway, the trail."

"Wander where you will, you have the ever-new charm, the finishing touch, the ever-refreshing radiance of the wild flowers."

"And it may be--for nations with all their pomp and pride are short-lived--that every flag that now flaunts the sky, that every nation now on earth, will pass out of existence long before these patriarchal [Sequoias] lie down at last upon the mountains.  Some of these trees have already out-lived more than fifty generations of mankind.  Some of them are likely to look upon a score or more of passing generations of the human race.  These trees might tell a thousand stirring stories to the one possessed by the Sphinx.  The Sphinx is of lifeless stone.  These trees are alive...But which shall be accounted the more striking and wonderful, the passing pictures in the centuries they have looked upon, or the moving, changing scenes in the centuries that they are yet to see?"

"A sequoia is an impressive wonder.  As the oldest settler upon the earth -- the pioneer of pioneers -- it knows the stories of centuries.  At the dead lips of the Sphinx you listen in vain, but beneath a Big Tree the ages speak and the centuries shift their scenes.  The Big Trees carry within their untranslated scross that which may enrich the literature of the world.  Within a Big Tree's brave breast are more materials of fact and fancy than in the ocean's coral cove, or in the murmuring sea-shell on the shore."

"I have boated in many of the canyons of the Colorado and have camped and tramped along their rims.  Often I have looked down into them when they were filled with mists; when broken clouds hung over them; when sunshine or moonlight illumined their depths, from which I have looked forth under like conditions.  But to me, whether in summer or when snow piles the rim, the Grand Canyon never loses its intense impressiveness."

"Scenery is our most valuable and our noblest resource."

"A Park should stand alone, and stand high.  If we think of the Parks separately, keep them free from the dominion of commercialism, of interests, and of organizations, we may hope in a short time to receive the best use of them."

"Forests give poetry to the prose of life and enable us to have and to hold high ideals."

"Stirring and wild, wonderful scenes are encountered during storms on mountain-tops, by the lakeshore, and in canyons.  The dangers in such times and places are fewer than in cities.  Discomforts?  Scarcely.  To some persons life must be hardly worth living.  If any normal person under fifty cannot enjoy being in a storm in the wilds, he ought to reform at once."

"Those who go up into the sky on mountains in the moonlight will have the greatest raptures and make the highest resolves."

"To enjoy the Parks, we need but to go to them realizing that these wilderness realms are the greatest places of safety on the earth.  The thousand dangers of the city are absent; the altitude of high mountains is not harmful but helpful -- the air is free form dust and germs; and even the wildest and most tempestuous weather within them will bear aquaintance."

"The wilderness is democratic and is full of ideas.  It gives efficiency and sympathy."

"He who feels the spell of the wild, the rhythmic melody of falling water, the echoes among the crags, the bird-songs, the wiind in the pines, and the endless beat of wave upon the shore, is in tune with the universe.  And he will know what human brotherhood means..."

"The trail compels you to know yourself and to be yourself, and puts you in harmony with the universe.  It makes you glad to be living.  It gives health, hope, and courage, and it extends that touch of nature which tends to make you kind."

"The traveler who forgets or loses the trail will lose his way, or miss the best of life.  the trail is the directest approach to the fountain of life, and this immortal way delays age and commands youth to linger.  While you delay along the trail, Father Time pauses to lean upon his scythe.  The trail wanders away from the fever and the fret, and leads to where the Red Gods call.  This wonderful way must not be buried and forgotten."
 
 

Copyright 2001 by the Enos Mills Cabin
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