The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1892-08-26
THE PASSION FOR CAMPING OUT.
How the Primitive Savage Instinct in
Man Is Seen in His Outings.

How the Primitive Savage Instinct In
Man Is Seen in His Outings.
When man spends a million or more
of dollars in building house for him.
self and his family he reaches the high
est remove from his primitive ancestors,
who knew no better shelter than cave,
a hut or tent. Nevertheless, in spite
of all our civilization, the underlying
primitive longing for freer life and a
purer air, green fields and the babble of
brooks is present in the mind of every
one who does business in great cities.
The crowds that take their outings in
the parks provided by different munich
palities for the families of those who
can only leave in the heat of the sum-
mer their sweltering homes for few
hours, or at most day, illustrate the
same primitive instinct. 1t declares it.
self also in the suburban cottages that
are to be found among our hills and in
the village communities that are spring
ing up on every side. 1t finds even a
stronger primitive expression in those
who leave the city to camp out for some
weeks or months in tents.
1t brings them nearer to the old pre-
historic and Biblical life, and it enables
them to hold close communion with ma
ture, to feel the soft yielding of the
grass and to stand face to face if not
with "the forest primeval," yet with
woods where it is pleasant to wander
among their cool, green hooks and their
Pickering lights and shadows. 1t is an
axiom that there is in all of us some re-
mains of the savage-in the English
man, who, during his sojourn in the
country, wants ito go out and kill
something" and in the American in the
Adirondacks, half of whose delight in
that primitive wilderness is the oppor-
tunity it offers him for hunting and
fishing.
There is as little doubt of the health
fitness of camping OUT as of its cheap
ness. Many of these campers" are not
actuated by those religious feelings
which draw large bodies of men and
women together at the recurrence of the
summer season. They have been led
into it by the freedom of an open air
lfe-the old primitive instinct-and by
the ease of an existence reduced to
cooking stove, few chairs and the
necessary beds.
The charm of camping out amid
grass and trees consists in bringing
down the wants of life to their first
principles, modified only by the civiliz-
ing influence of the age in which we
live. Its further charm is in its con-
trasts and simplicity when compared
with the complex exactions of cities.
Thousands of things that We're luxuries
to the older generation have become the
necessities Of their children.
That is one reason why tent life
around Baltimore has not died out since
the old Wesleyan times, but remains a
survival of the Methodist camp meeting
with notifications. Other cities may
offer attractions more novel, but with
us the campers say the love of the can
vas village is increasing. There are
thousands who are making them their
summer homes, some during the month
of August only, and many from the FIRST
of July to the last of September.
The primitive instinct is manifest in
this kind of life, although our people
are no longer cave jewellers or builders
of rude huts, and instead of the tents of
skins of the Cloths and Huns, or the
camels hair tents of the Bedouins, they
shelter themselves beneath the cotton
duck of the present day. Baltimore
American.