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Another friend said: “If I were you, I would go to the museum, and ask for Professor Huxley. He is quite sure to help you.”
So the poor, scared little shoe clerk screwed up his courage to call on the famous scientist. Huxley was one of those great men who are always ready to help students and, for the time being, focus all thought on the matter in hand. He received the shoe clerk most kindly, sent to the library for books, helped him to name his specimens, and told him to come again whenever he needed help.
So this shoe clerk found another field, a new world into which he could enter when free from his shop duties. It infused joy into his otherwise sordid life, and he kept right on till he became the best authority on the insects of the London parks.
Huxley, addressing his class, told them of this young fellow and said: “That is what I wish every one of you to do. Follow your calling, your vocation, with all your energies, in business hours; but at other times, have some avocation, something that your heart is in, a corner of the realm of the imagination — a big field or a little field, according to your gifts, but one in which you are the best authority, in which you are the king.”
So the Woodcraft idea deals not with the shoe clerk in his counter-jumping hours, his vocation, but with his avocation; not with his commercial exploits, but with his Sundays, when he was King of the Bugs of Battersea Park.
The few trades or vocations that are recognized in our official Manual are part and parcel of outdoor life and camping, or intimately associated with them.
In giving shape to the recreational activities of Woodcraft, the founder has made a lifelong study of human impulses, recognizing in these age-old, inherited habits of the race, a weapon and a force of invincible power, never forgetting that instincts may go wrong and be a menace; also that to thwart or aim at crushing an instinct is courting disaster.
One keen observer, noting how completely we utilized the life forces, defined Woodcraft as “Lifecraft” ..text pokračuje
