THE BOOK OF CAMP-LORE
AND WOODCRAFT
FOUNDER OF THE FIRST BOY SCOUTS SOCIETY
WITH 377 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.
Garden City New York
THE RIGHTS OF TRANSLATION ARE RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
George Du Pont Pratt
COMMISSIONER OF CONSERVATION, STATE OF NEW YORK
SCOUT, SPORTSMAN AND OUTDOOR MAN
FOREWORD TO THE SECOND
EDITION
Boys, if this foreword is too "highbrow" for your taste,skip it, but the author don't believe you will, and even ifhe has used some dictionary words he feels that you willforgive him after he tells you that he did so only because ofthe lack of time to think up more simple terms. What hewants to say is that. . . .
Boyhood is a wonderful and invaluable asset to the nation,for in the breast of every boy there is a divine spark, materialistscall it the "urge of youth," others call it the "Christin man," the Quakers call it the "inner light," but all viewit with interest and anxiety, the ignorant with fear and thewise with understanding sympathy, but also with a feelingakin to awe.
Those of us who think we know boys, feel that this "innerlight" illuminating their wonderful powers of imagination,is the compelling force culminating in the vigorous accomplishmentsof manhood. It is the force which sent Columbusvoyaging over the unknown seas, which sent Captain Cookon his voyage around the world, the same force which carriedLindbergh in his frail airship across the Atlantic. Yes,it is the sublime force which has inspired physicians andlaymen to cheerfully risk and sacrifice their lives in searchof the cause of Yellow Fever, Anthrax, Hydrophobia andother communicable diseases . . . no, not for science butfor
As a boy, the author dreamed of wonderful municipalplaygrounds, of organizations giving the boys opportunityto camp in the open, of zoological and botanical gardensplanned and adapted to the understanding of youth. Hisbusy life as a civil engineer, surveyor, and work in the opengave him no opportunity to develop his dreams, but at theend of a five year tour of the United States and Canada,made over fifty years ago, he drifted into New York Cityand was shocked beyond expression by the almost total lackof breathing spaces for our boys, in the greatest of Americancities. True, it then had Central Park; but fifty years agoCentral Park was out among the goats, only to