Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1907-07-13
The Vacation Season.


more and more a necessity in mod
ern American life. With all due re-
spect to our forefathers. it is not to
be denied that the present genera
ton. especially in our great Cities
works much harder and more con-
sistently than they did in old times.
Work is done under conditions much
more trying on the nerves. conditions
which keep men strained up at hlsh
tension so that there simply has 10 DC
change and relaxation. To be sure
they took life more seriously III the
old times than the present generation
takes it, but they also took HE much
lmnre icisurely And 50, as the pace OIL
living has become so much sWlfter ana
the nature of making a living III a big
city so much more nerve racklns' the
vacation season has become neces-
sity. for constitutions and brains are
no more impervious to breakdown now
than they used to be, in fact, it is fire.
uueutly asserted that they are less so.
OF course. the vacation season is the
summer season and throughout the
whole country, from the last of June
until into September. business of all
kinds feels the national vacation spirit.
The schools and colleges close; the
Theatrical season comes to an end;
the machinery Of the courts and of
government, itself, moves slowly and
fitfully; professional men close their
offices in mid afternoon, and manu-
| featuring establishments and stores
in the large cities grant half holidays
on Saturday. In all kinds of work it
| is the time for the yearly relaxation
even for those who have to stay be-
| hind at the post of duty and are UNI
able to set away into the woods or
back or to the farm or down where the
| white surf breaks against the rocks.
| from the great cities such a thing as
passing 4 vacation in the city is
something 50 wholly inconsistent as
not to be thought of. The idea OF Va
cation is synonymous with thoughts
Of the old homestead nesting far a
way among the New England hills. of
| the shady places under the willows
| where the fish are lurking, of gray
| cliffs towering far above the blue sea,
and of the solitude and peace of the
deep forest. 1t is this getting back to
| nature and to the places of youth
which gives the busy man in the city
| his real vacation and which makes the
summer season for his family the time
| hich is looked forward to through
| half of the year and looked back upon
for the other half.
Our forcfathcrs knew nothing of
| life in great cities as they exist to-day,
great cities where there is not even a
suggt stion of green growing things.
Of pure atmosphere and running water,
of great cities such as exist to-day
with their intense and eternal struggle
for the almighty dollar. And so, while
the vacation season is a modern insti-
| tuition, it is necessity of the times,
| and if the country should so without
| it for a single year the results to the
| intellectual and business life Of the
land would be something which stag
gers the Imagination.
Here i'll Maine. which is commonly
| spoken Of as the summer playground
of the nation. the vacation habit
which the rest of the country has a
Gnptcd is looked upon as one Of our
greatest business assets, and as this
| habit has grown and as the attractions
of our great state have become better
known. an increasing multitude has
come here each year There is room
the great and famous resorts of the
! shore and Of the interior. but at hun
dr"ds Of other less known and equally
attractive places where camps and
small hotels await them. on the thou
sands Of farms and in the quiet coun-
try villages throughout the state and
in the depths of the great woods that
stretch northward to Canada Each
day and each train is bringing them
now. not only the multitudes of those
vino arc brought hither by the old
homo spirit. but the greater number Of
those from the great cities and the
less favored parts of the land who
come to spend their summer vacations
in beautiful Maine.
AS for our own people. here in
Maine, of course there are no great
cities and no such life at high pressure
as is common in the large centcrs, but
nevertheless We all need and should
take a vacation from our usual duties
n n Il,