Teaching the Article
Exercise 4: Reforming Wayward Youth
At the beginning of the twentieth century, social reformers turned to nature as a way of improving the moral character of American youth. This “nature study” movement argued that children could become more compassionate, charitable, generous, and disciplined by studying the natural world around them. Ernest Thompson Seton, a popular nature-writer and one of the founders of the Boy Scouts in the United States, agreed. In 1914, writing for the magazine Boys’ Life, he argued in favor of introducing “missionary squirrels” to American towns and cities.
Questions
- What was the problem that “missionary squirrels” were supposed to solve? Why does Seton think they will be more effective than a moral lecture?
- What role do women play in Seton’s account? How are the boys depicted? What does this tell us about the gendered expectations of social reformers such as Seton in the early twentieth century?
- What impact, if any, does the presence of domesticated and wild animals in the city have on the way children (and adults) behave today?
Sources
- Ernest Thompson Seton, “Around the Campfire,” Boys’ Life, 4 (April 1914), 23, available at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=hfVhPFxv5I8C&lpg=PA1&dq=Ernest%20Thompson%20Seton%20%E2%80%9CAround%20the%20Campfire%E2%80%9D%20%201914%20squirrels&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q&f=false
Local copy of article (JPG)