Friends of John Muir's Birthplace

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
.  Wildness was ever sounding in our ears, and Nature saw to it that besides school lessons and church lessons some of her own lessons should be learned, perhaps with a view to the time when we should be called to wander in wildness to our heart’s content.  Oh, the blessed enchantment of those Saturday runaways in the prime of the spring!  How our young wondering eyes reveled in the sunny, breezy glory of the hills and the sky, every particle of us thrilling and tingling with the bees and glad birds and glad streams!  Kings may be blessed; we were glorious, we were free, – school cares and scoldings, heart thrashings and flesh thrashings alike, were forgotten in the fullness of Nature’s glad wildness.  These were my first excursions, – the beginnings of lifelong wanderings

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

Notwithstanding the great number of harshly enforced rules, not very good order was kept in school in my time…  The masters lived in a big freestone house within eight or ten yards of the schools, so that they could easily step out for anything they wanted…  The moment our master disappeared, perhaps for a book or a drink, every scholar left his seat and his lessons, jumped on top of the benches and desks or crawled beneath them, tugging, rolling, wrestling, accomplishing in a minute a depth of disorder and din unbelievable save by a Scottish scholar.  We even carried on war, class against class, in those wild, precious minutes.  A watcher gave the alarm when the master opened his house-door to return, and it was a great feat to get into our places before he entered, adorned in awful majestic authority shouting “Silence!” and striking resounding blows with his cane on a desk or on some unfortunate scholar’s back.

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

Fighting was carried on still more vigorously in the high school than in the common school.  Whenever any one was challenged, either the challenge was allowed or it was decided by a battle on the seashore, where with stubborn enthusiasm we battered each other as if we had not been sufficiently battered by the teacher.  When we were so fortunate as to finish a fight without getting a black eye, we usually escaped a thrashing at home and another next morning at school, for other traces of the fray could be easily washed off at a well on the church brae, or concealed, or passed as results of playground accidents; but a black eye could never be explained away from downright fighting.

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

I can’t conceive of anything that would now enable me to concentrate my attention more fully than when I was a mere stripling boy, and it was all done by whipping, – thrashing in general.  Old-fashioned Scotch teachers spent no time in seeking short roads to knowledge, or in trying any of the new-fangled psychological methods so much in vogue nowadays.  There was nothing said about making the seats easy or the lessons easy.  We were simply driven pointblank against our books like soldiers against the enemy, and sternly ordered, “Up and at ’em.  Commit your lessons to memory!”  If we failed in any part, however slight, we were whipped; for the grand, simple, all-sufficing Scotch discovery had been made that there was a close connection between the skin and the memory, and that irritating the skin excited the memory to any required degree.

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

In addition to all this, father made me learn so many Bible verses every day that by the time I was eleven years of age I had about three fourths of the Old Testament and all of the New by heart and by sore flesh.  I could recite the New Testament from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Revelation without a single stop.  The dangers of cramming and of making scholars study at home instead of letting their little brains rest were never heard of in those days.

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

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

An exciting time came when at the age of seven or eight years I left the auld Davel Brae school for the grammar school.  Of course I had a terrible lot of fighting to do, because a new scholar had to meet every one of his age who dared to challenge him, this being the common introduction to a new school.  It was very strenuous for the first month or so, establishing my fighting rank, taking up new studies, especially Latin and French, getting acquainted with new classmates and the master and his rules.

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 andinspired him to change the world’s view of wild places

Today’s quote

After attaining the manly, belligerent age of five or fix years, very few of my schooldays passed without a fistfight, and half a dozen was no uncommon number.  When any classmate of our own age questioned our rank and standing as fighters, we always made haste to settle the matter at a quiet place on the Davel Brae.  To be a ‘gude fechter’[1] was our highest ambition, our dearest aim in life in or out of school.  To be a good scholar was a secondary consideration, though we tried hard to hold high places in our classes and gloried in being Dux.

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

One of our best playgrounds was the famous old Dunbar Castle, to which King Edward fled after has defeat at Bannockburn.  It was built more than a thousand years ago,and though we knew little of its history, we had heard many mysterious stories of the battles fought about its walls, and firmly believed that every bone we found in the ruins belonged to an ancient warrior.  We tried to see who could climb highest on the crumbling peaks and crags, and took chances that no cautious mountaineer would try.  That I did not fall and finish my rock-scrambling in those adventurous boyhood days seems now a reasonable wonder