Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-09-01
OUTDOORS OBSERVATION.
A Defense Of Cunning and Angling.
From the National Review,

From the National Review.
l do not think that any one ever walked
through field with gun, or by water with q
rod. without being the better for it. knowledge
Is natural history, and can only be acquired in
the open. From books images are formed in
the mind, but they are very unlike the reality;
description Is so different to touch. With gun
and rod actual facts are reached. touched and
understood. No one can obtain a clear idea Of
things as they actually are without seeing or
touching; reading is not enough. I had studied
several books on physiology. and considered
possessed a fair knowledge of the organs: yet.
one day when l CHANGED to see large animal
opened after its death / was utterly COMPOUNDED,
so little had colOred plates and letterpress pre-
pared me for the reality. that / could not
recognize It, There was no comparison at
all between the diagrams and the facts. Of
which | should have remained in ignorance
The actual organs appeared so original as to be
quite another series to those I had studied
Now l claim for the gun that, although of
metal, 1t is better book than any printed vol
ume / claim for sport in it's general sense that
it brings the mind in contact with the facts of
life. and imparts the higher education which is
Independent of and superior to mere literary
knowledge A man may be extremely clever
with his books, his mathematics. his differential
calculus and analysis, and yet be absolutely ig
norant of those forces which still control the
minds and hearts of men in the nineteenth CEN
fury as they did in the fifteenth. In the fifteenth
and sixteenth men seem to have eXcelled in
the knowledge of their fellow-creatures, their
passions and desires. knowledge that comes
to the surface in everything which remains to
us of those days. But though we individually
now walk forth unnamed with dagger or
secret breast-plate and though the nations
listen cOmplacently to the smooth tongues
assuring them of peace. yet it is certain that
man is man much the same as ever; and
my argument is that, in these days of lit
erary scholarship and scientific scholarship,
many otherwise leading minds are constantly
forgetting those strong passions and forces
which will for ages yet dominate the destiny of
the world. Presently they will wake up, under
the shock of some great and terrible event. to
discover that the real physiology and the real
organs are entirely different to those colored
plates and diagrams which they mistOOk for
truth. Did they walk out with gun or rod or
mount into the saddle and ride In the hunting
field. their eyes would be opened to the facts of
nature and lite. Certain it is that great num-
bers of what are called well-educated people at
the present day. pass years and years practi-
cally indoors, and morally looking out over the
world through pink-tinted glass for the preser-
walton of their eyesight. Everything that passes
before them, whether matters that affect an
empire or an individual. takes the same tint;
all things are judged from some artificial stand
point, and never on their own basis. This may
be very amiable and well-intentioned, but what
occurs? The forces which dominate the world
the passions and ambitions, hatreds and jeal-
ousies, steadily march onward, utterly refusing
to listen to these theories. and by and by war,
or some national convulsion throws all things
into confusion. I contend that those who have
been educated in the field as well as in the
study, in contact with nature aud in contact
with man. are best fitted to guide the country.
statesman must be a sportsman. or, what
comes to the same thing. he must move in con-
tact with the actualities of natures he must
take his thought from the earth as it is from
man as he is, direct, and not from the pale
images of books. Then he will lead by virtue
of the genius springing in his heart, and he will
be successful because his course will correspond
with observed truth