John 1837-1921 Burroughs

BURROUGHS, JOHN (1837-1921). Once John Bur roughs, the famous essayist who wrote so much about nature, was asked to write to a class Of children who were studying rhetoric. This, among other things, was what he wrote: " I think I have got more help as an author from going a-fishing than from any text book or classbook I have ever looked into. Your teacher will not thank me for encouraging you to play truant, but if you take Bacon's or Emerson's or Arnold's or Cowley's essays with you, and dip into them now and then while you are waiting for the fish to bite, she will detect some fresh gleam in your com position when next you hand one in." Not many boys, however, make fishing what John Burroughs made it, an opportunity to study nature and the best essayists at the same time. The letter is not so much advice as it is a revelation of the man Burroughs, who more successfully than any other writer of our age has joined nature study with litera ture and the lives of men. Thoreau could live a recluse at Walden Pond, but Burroughs could do this and turn from it to the human pleasure of tramping and arguing with Theodore Roosevelt. It is no wonder that chil dren all over the country loved Mr. Burroughs. Not only children, but grown-ups too, have made pil grimages in thousands to his simple cottage " Slab sides" near the Hudson River, and his other homes.

Born on a farm in New York State, he grew up among the sights and smells of the country. When a little older he taught in a country school for about eight years. Then he worked at a clerkship in the treasury department in Washington for ten years more, and was afterwards a national bank examiner.

But business did not satisfy him, and when he was 46 he built a house on the banks of the Hudson River, where he lived the peaceful contemplative life he loved, cultivating fruit and writing.

Burroughs was a writer by instinct and at 14 had already begun to write essays. At 24 he succeeded in having an essay published in the Atlantic Monthly, and from then on he became a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers, and also wrote a large number of books. Most of these are on nature study, though a few are on literary subjects. He also wrote some delightful records of travel.

Burroughs' best-known works are: 'Wake Robin' (1871) ; `Winter Sunshine' (1875) ; 'Birds and Poets' (1877) ; 'Whit man, a Study' (1896) ; 'Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers' (1900) ; 'Ways of Nature' (1905) ; 'Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt' (1907).