The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Joseph Wood Krutch, Thoreau and Co. I HAVE LONG CHERISHED the idea of doing a piece on the ecology of Joseph Wood Krutch, with side glances at the American St....
...And it should be remembered as part of the equation that countless plants and animals have been preserved and spread over the world as population has gained on wilderness...
...Our author views with dread the onward tramp of this mob...
...He neither rants nor raves, he just quietly explains...
...His mule-back journey down into the breath-taking abyss gives the reader a feeling that he is covering the world—including the tiny postscript devoted to the creature known as man...
...He has not only exploited all latitudes and longitudes, all climates, temperatures and elevations...
...I hate fellows who go gaping about the world exclaiming that Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon are wonderful...
...But there is, in both Thoreau and Krutch, an attitude toward human beings which I find unpleasant and dangerous...
...The world of Nature is infinitely helpful and healthgiving...
...But Krutch's main point will withstand any honest analysis...
...Incidentally, he gives himself a new degree, "amateur of things in general...
...We need more parks, more guards, guides, scientists and greater provision for the comfort of more people...
...276pp...
...That boy is worth a good many small animals...
...The Canyon is deeper, the shadows are darker, the great, piled-up strata are more solid and colorful, everything is livelier and lovelier because we are seeing it through Krutch's imagination...
...The wild and rugged Arizona wilderness comes out of this book enriched and beautified by having been made the source of knowledge and understanding...
...Within pretty definite limits, I will go along both with Krutch and with Henry David Thoreau...
...Both of them are afraid of people...
...But when I have visited these parks I have been impressed by the awe with which the myriads of common people have viewed the wonders of nature and by the real interest with which they have listened to talks on scientific topics provided for them...
...Some plants and animals we can very well do without—mosquitoes and poison ivy, for example...
...Along with them have gone perhaps as many birds and an unknown number of humbler creatures...
...It is inevitable that they should tramp down some dainty plants and endanger the lives of some tiny animals...
...When I think of these things I always recall a freckle-faced boy who shouted to me as we ended a tour at Mesa Verde: "I have learned more today than I ever learned in a day at school...
...But this ecological study must be postponed...
...He explains the Grand Canyon by utilizing all of his arts and learnings...
...Our crowding populations have destroyed much that was beautiful and valuable...
...When his book, Grand Canyon (Sloane...
...The hundreds of thousands the author in the national parks were there because they were hungry and thirsty for the healing that only the wilderness can give...
...5.00...
...He has moved in on astronomy, biology, geology, physics, anthropology, religion, history, music and so on and on...
...This book deserves much more attention than I can give it in my small space...
...We have destroyed much and it is only lately that we have set our minds to preserving and developing...
...Krutch's account of destruction in this book is horrifying : "More than a hundred species and subspecies of mammals are known to have disappeared from the face of the earth since the beginning of the Christian era...
...The millions of people who suddenly have automobiles and the yearning for the woods do create a problem, but we cannot solve it by being afraid of them...
...So I just naturally thought I would use the wonders of Krutch's career in substitution for the soon-to-be-exhausted delights of the mile-deep, ten-mile-wide canyon...
...There are, he explains, three sorts of nature spots, "the wilderness area, the protected nature reserve and the recreation resort...
...The first is for the small minority, the second for a larger group of the partially civilized, the third for the poor, dumb dopes who have never been taught to take care of things...
...Congress has not created the national parks for the delight of the elite...
...Had I written my column about him, I would have stressed the variety of sciences and arts from which Krutch has drawn sustenance...
...How many plants have suffered extinction has not, so far as I am aware, been guessed at...
...Our versatile amateur of things in general gives himself away in his discussion of the crowds in our national parks...
...Krutch does no gaping and no gasping...
...I should record, however, that there were moments when I was inclined to turn against both Krutch and the idolized pencil-maker of Concord, who has led him through so much of his authorship...
...no man can write a volume about a big hole in the ground that will deserve attention for the entire length of my column...
...arrived, I said to myself: "This is my chance...
...Francis who has been his guide through a career of distinguished authorship...
...What he does to that big hole is pretty close to magic...
Vol. 42 • January 1959 • No. 1
