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Show Wildernesses Must Be Maintained Because Human Society Needs Them i By DR. C. C. ADAMS, Roosevelt Experiment Station. With increasing population there is always a tendency to encroach upon wilderness. Thus, to maintain park wildernesses can only be accomplished ac-complished by a struggle, and the eternal vigilance needed to preserve our liberty is the same price that must be paid for the free, wild nature of the wilderness. The wilderness, like the forest, was once a great hindrance to our civilization, but now the tide has turned and wildernesses and forests must be maintained, even at much expense, because human society needs them. At present the parks suffer to a large degree because they are in the hands of administrators whom, because of their lack of special training, we must consider as amateur. We have had no profession for this line of work, and some who have had the most training are to be feared to a corresponding degree because of preconceived, formal ideas which they, with almost religious zeal, slip into the wilderness parks.' The ideal of the wilderness park is beyond their ken, because their approach has been from another angle. These persons are of course welcomed in formal city parks, but in our large national parks and in the wild parts of our state parks they are liable to be a menace. |