Other editions of book The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

“With more than half a million square miles, Alaska ranks number one among with 50 states in the area, and number 50 in population. It still represents the ultimate wilderness, the wildness Muir was always seeking. There, a century ago, he reveled in the beauty and the freedom of this new land, so remote, so aloof, so filled with new experiences. It provided a special satisfaction to one who, to a rare degree, felt an affinity with the wildest of the wilderness.”

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth reveals the beginnings of the forming of Muir's special relation towards nature. He considered the encounters with nature as quite an adventure and at first, paid special attention to bird life. John Muir understood that to discover truth, he must turn to what he believed were the most accurate sources. In his autobiographical account, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, he writes that during his childhood, his father made him read the Bible every day. Muir eventually memorized three-quarters of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament. In his autobiography, written near the end of his life, he described his life from childhood years in Scotland and moving to America to student years in Wisconsin. When he was a student in the University of Wisconsin, he was a frequent caller at the house of Dr. Ezra S. Carr. The kindness shown him there, and especially the sympathy which Mrs. Carr, as a botanist and a lover of nature, felt in the young manes interests and aims, led to the formation of a lasting friendship. He regarded Mrs. Carr, indeed, as his "spiritual mother," and his letters to her in later years are the outpourings of a sensitive spirit to one who he felt thoroughly understood and sympathized with him.

"When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation, With red-blooded playmates, wild as myself, I loved to wander in the fields to hear the birds sing, and along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells and seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was low; and best of all to watch the waves in awful storms thundering on the black headlands and craggy ruins of the old Dunbar Castle when the sea and the sky, the waves and the clouds, were mingled together as one. We never thought of playing truant, but after I was five or six years old I ran away to the seashore or the fields most every Saturday, and every day in the school vacations except Sundays, though solemnly warned that I must play at home in the garden and back yard, lest I should learn to think bad thoughts and say bad words. All in vain. In spite of the sure sore punishments that followed like shadows, the natural inherited wildness in our blood ran true on its glorious course as invincible and unstoppable as stars..." -- John Muir

The Story of my Boyhood and Youth is the affecting memoir of the now internationally renowned John Muir, a Scottish-American boy subject to a most unusual upbringing, his transition into adulthood, and the path that led him to petition for the concept of protected national parks.Born in East Lothian, Scotland in 1838, Muir was raised by a fanatically strict, religious father with his numerous brothers and sisters and loving mother. From an early age, a shy Muir showed fascination with the natural world, and at aged eleven, his father announced the family were to move to an American wilderness in Wisconsin – Muir had a new playground.His adolescence is spent labouring on the family’s grassroots farm. Working seventeen-hour days, an exhausted yet inquisitive Muir desperately snatches moments to himself, yearning to explore the environment around him, secretly studying books on topics other than religion, and rising at 1 a.m. to pursue his hobby of inventing intricate time and energy-saving devices – much to his father’s disapproval and everyone else’s admiration.At age twenty-two, Muir takes it upon himself to apply to university, and does so without financial or moral support from his father. He makes his way to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study chemistry and botany, and though never graduating with a degree, he is satisfied that he had learned all he wanted to there, before completing the rest of his nature education in ‘the university of the wilderness’.The Story of my Boyhood and Youth includes a new foreword by Terry Gifford, and offers insight into the development of Muir’s spiritual connection with the natural world, and suggests an explanation for his passion for freedom in the wilderness, a stark contrast to the forced rigidity of his early years.

The Story of My Boyhood and Youth is a stirring autobiography by the great American naturalist, John Muir."When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation."John Muir (April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914)[1] also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir, Muir Grove, and Muir Glacier. In Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130-mile-long route, was named in honor of him.In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park"; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.John Muir has been considered "an inspiration to both Scots and Americans". Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity," both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. "Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world," writes Holmes. Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name "almost ubiquitous" in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth", while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was "...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism."[13]:403 On April 21, 2013, the first ever John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist.

One of America's most important and influential naturalists, John Muir was a formative figure in the country's conservation movement and the establishment of the national park system. He was also a gifted storyteller, and in this series of essays he reminisces about his early years. Muir relates the circumstances that inspired and nurtured his fascination with the natural world, from his boyhood in Scotland to his years at the University of Wisconsin, where he "spent so many hungry and happy and hopeful days."Born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838 and sent to school at the age of three, Muir studied Latin, French, and mathematics in the classroom and the Bible at home, under the tutelage of his strict father. At 11, his family emigrated to a frontier community in central Wisconsin, where the elder Muir purchased a small property and converted it into farmlands, carving cultivated fields out of the wilderness with the backbreaking labor of his children. Muir's natural curiosity shines throughout these recollections of prairie life, recapturing the intelligence, imagination, and stamina that blossomed despite harsh conditions. His mechanical ability helped him find a way into the wider world; when he exhibited his complicated wooden clocks and other remarkable inventions at the Wisconsin State Fair, he met individuals who served as his mentors and encouraged him to attend the university. Told in his own captivating voice, these memoirs offer fascinating insights into frontier life and the making of a great explorer and naturalist.

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” -John Muir “No reader of John Muir’s account of his boyhood and youth can have closed the book without wishing for a sequel.” The Dial “Given with an enthusiasm that makes the volume a diverting bit of reading. His childhood days in Scotland his boyhood days in the American wilderness, his exploits as a boy inventor and his college days at the University of Wisconsin, all yield interesting descriptions and episodes wherever one may happen to open the volume.” -Quarterly Bulletin of the Providence Public Library 'A superbly told, moving and challenging story. For anybody remotely interested in the environment, Scottish culture, American history, the art of biography or the art of life, this book is essential.” - Scotland on Sunday In a lifetime of exploration, writing, and passionate political activism, John Muir made himself America's most eloquent spokesman for the mystery and majesty of the wilderness, a master of natural description who evoked and celebrated with unique power and intimacy the untrammeled landscapes of Alaska and the American West. In The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, Muir recounts in vivid detail the three worlds of his early life: his first eleven years in Scotland; the years 1849–1860 in the central Wisconsin wilderness; and two-and-a-half most inventive years at the University of Wisconsin during that institution’s infancy. Contents I. A BOYHOOD IN SCOTLAND Earliest Recollections--The "Dandy Doctor" Terror--Deeds of Daring--The Savagery of Boys--School and Fighting--Birds'-nesting. II. A NEW WORLD Stories of America--Glorious News--Crossing the Atlantic--The New Home--A Baptism in Nature--New Birds--The Adventures of Watch--Scotch Correction--Marauding Indians. III. LIFE ON A WISCONSIN FARM Humanity in Oxen--Jack, the Pony--Learning to Ride--Nob and Nell--Snakes--Mosquitoes and their Kin--Fish and Fishing--Considering the Lilies--Learning to Swim--A Narrow Escape from Drowning and a Victory--Accidents to Animals. IV. A PARADISE OF BIRDS Bird Favorites--The Prairie Chickens--Water-Fowl--A Loon on the Defensive--Passenger Pigeons. V. YOUNG HUNTERS American Head-Hunters--Deer--A Resurrected Woodpecker--Muskrats--Foxes and Badgers--A Pet Coon--Bathing--Squirrels--Gophers--A Burglarious Shrike. VI. THE PLOUGHBOY The Crops--Doing Chores--The Sights and Sounds of Winter--Road-making--The Spirit-rapping Craze--Tuberculosis among the Settlers--A Cruel Brother--The Rights of the Indians--Put to the Plough at the Age of Twelve--In the Harvest-Field--Over-Industry among the Settlers--Running the Breaking-Plough--Digging a Well--Choke-Damp--Lining Bees. VII. KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS Hungry for Knowledge--Borrowing Books--Paternal Opposition--Snatched Moments--Early Rising proves a Way out of Difficulties--The Cellar Workshop--Inventions--An Early-Rising Machine--Novel Clocks--Hygrometers, etc.--A Neighbor's Advice. VIII. THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY Leaving Home--Creating a Sensation in Pardeeville--A Ride on a Locomotive--At the State Fair in Madison--Employment in a Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien--Back to Madison--Entering the University--Teaching School--First Lesson in Botany--More Inventions--The University of the Wilderness.

Excerpt from The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, And, a Thousand-Mile Walk to the GulfLongest is the life that contains the largest amount of time-effacing enjoyment of work that is a steady delight. Such a life may really comprise an eternity upon earth. These words of John Muir I noted down after one of our last conversations. To few men was it given to realize so completely the element of eternity of time-efi'acing enjoyment in work as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. Only such a one would have mounted the top of a pine tree in a gale - swept forest in order to enjoy the better the passionate music of the storm, and then tell how we all travel the milky way together, trees and men, but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, he wrote, that trees are travelers in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not exten sive ones it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings many of them not so much.But the play of his rich imagination did not pause with the adventure in the tree-top.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation. With red-blooded playmates, wild as myself, I loved to wander in the fields to hear the birds sing, and along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells and seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was low; and best of all to watch the waves in awful storms thundering on the black headlands and craggy ruins of the old Dunbar Castle when the sea and the sky, the waves and the clouds, were mingled together as one. We never thought of playing truant, but after I was five or six years old I ran away to the seashore or the fields almost every Saturday, and every day in the school vacations except Sundays, though solemnly warned that I must play at home in the garden and back yard, lest I should learn to think bad thoughts and say bad words. All in vain. In spite of the sure sore punishments that followed like shadows, the natural inherited wildness in our blood ran true on its glorious course as invincible and unstoppable as stars.