The Woods Dedication Week Henry David Thoreau Henry

The Woods Dedication Week

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau 1817 -1862 He was an American writer. He spent two years in a self-built cabin along Walden Pond where he went to live simply and enjoy the beauty of nature. He wrote about his experiences there in a book called Walden. The name “The Woods” for outdoor classroom comes directly from a very famous quote from the book. In addition, most of the names within the classroom either came directly from or were inspired by his writings.

Walden Pond

Walden Pond Concord, Massachusetts

The Woods “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ”

The Living Earth Gardening Area “The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit – not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. ”

The Artist Nature Art Area “When I see on the one side the inert bank, --for the sun acts on one side first – and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me – had come to where he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about. ”

The Endeavor Building Area “I learned this at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. ”

The Awakening Butterfly Garden “To be awake is to be alive…We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not my mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. ”

The Castle Original Classroom Behind PII “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. ”

The Pathway to Original Classroom “To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. ”

God’s Drop Chapel and Meeting Area “The cars never pause to look at it [Walden Pond]; yet I fancy that the engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those passengers who have a season ticket and see it often, are better men for the sight. The engineer does not forget at night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this vision of serenity and purity once at least during the day. Though seen but once, it helps to wash out Statestreet and the engine's soot. One proposes that it be called ‘God's Drop. ’”

God’s Palette and The Concert God’s Palette: Wildflower Garden The Concert: Music Area The above names are not attributed to a direct quote, but rather inspired by Thoreau’s description of both the sights and sounds of nature – the beautiful “palette” of colors that the Artist (God) uses, as well as the “concert” of sounds a person can hear if one pauses long enough to listen.

The Dig and The Tree House These names were inspired by science and imagination rather than by Thoreau.