THE OUTING MOVEMENT

[That the activities represented by the Outing Club are of interest to alumni in all parts of the country, is evidenced by the following testimony from Paul G. Redington '00, Supervisor of the Sierra National Forest in California. The Outing Club was evidently ready to be born several college generations ago.]

The decided trend towards out-of doors among the undergraduates of Dartmouth, is, I believe, on a small scale, concrete and most gratifying evidence of a generally growing feeling among the American people that a certain amount of time spent in the open is absolutely essential for their well-being, physically—mentally—morally.

When I entered Dartmouth sixteen years ago, the undergraduate who braved the chill winds and deep snows of a Hanover winter, except to get to meals, to lectures, and to Chapel, was a remarkable exception. We liked our warm quarters and Our pipes, and each other's company, and for a long time we failed utterly to appreciate what lay in store for us out-of-doors. Along in '98, however, several men got up sufficient courage to venture out on ski trips and on tobogganning expeditions in the country north of the hospital. I shall not soon forget how Joe Wentworth, piloting a toboggan party, ran a bunch of men over a rocky wall on the golf links, or how assiduously Fred Bennis and Dick Marcy tried to keep their equilibrium on the elusive ski.

Until the Outing Club was organized and specifically directed men's attention to the out-of-door attractions, the great majority of Dartmouth undergraduates did not know what advantages they possessed over the men in many other colleges not in close proximity to the country.

It has been my good fortune to lead very much of an open air existence for the last twelve years, 50 per cent of my time during that period having been spent in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas of California, and I can truly say that had I known in college of the multiform benefits to be derived from living outside of walls, I would have been familiar with every nook and cranny and by-path of Grafton County and her hills.

The rush of the business and professional life, into which a newly fledged college graduate jumps, almost prevents him from thinking about' much else. When his vacation comes, the chances are in favor of his turning to a popular resort or watering-place, and there the attractions are oftentimes of such a nature as to give him but small time in the real out-of-doors. If, however, he has had his attention directed strongly while in college to the tangible good things in the country and the hills, and on the: water, I am thoroughly convinced that his vacations of after years will be spent outside, where with his greater need and appreciation, he will get full value received.

What can be finer than a 30-mile horseback ride, or a tramp of a solid day, through territory unreached by the clamor of a city? Such a jaunt is easily possible for any city habitant. Does one know of a more interesting moment than that when a speckled trout flashes up for the: Black Gnat or the Royal Coachman ? And the complete satisfaction and most estimable tired feeling, after the day's hunting or fishing or tramping is done! When one looks abroad from the top of Moosilauke, or Washington, or Pike's Peak, or Mount Goddard does he not entirely eliminate the memory of the hard climb m his wonder at the over-whelming panoama? rAn outing of this kind results in undoubted physical betterment. In turn, a man's mental work-shop is cleared of cobwebs, and no one who has been much in the out-of-doors will dispute my statement that the moral fibre of his being is wonderfully strengthened from his intimate contact with the big things of Nature.

Out in this western country the people of the cities are coming by thousands into the mountains, in the summer and winter time. One sees an appreciable increase in the number each year. It ought to be so everywhere.

The Outing Club, in interesting the undergraduates in out-of-door life, has accomplished a truly valuable achievement, and as a step in the line of broader education, its results will be far-reaching indeed. I would like to see every man at Hanover a member of this organization, and I fully believe that the other live institutions of the country will not be slow in following the precedent established by the organizers of the Outing Club at Dartmouth.