On 15 March 1913, John Muir’s ‘The Story of My Boyhood and Youth’ was published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York. It has constantly been available in the 100 years since. It tells of his early years in Dunbar and then, from ages 11 to 22, of growing up in the wonderful Wisconsin countryside. His love of nature, awakened in East Lothian, was nurtured in Marquette County and inspired him to change the world’s view of wild places.
Today’s quote
We had to get three lessons every day in Latin, three in French, and as many in English, besides spelling, history, arithmetic, and geography. Word lessons in particular,
the wouldst-couldst-shouldst-have-loved kind, were kept up, with much warlike
thrashing, until I had committed the whole of the French, Latin, and English
grammars to memory, and in connection with reading-lessons we were called on to
recite parts of them with the rules over and over again, as if all the regular
and irregular incomprehensible verb stuff was poetry