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Show 541 remembered, the innocent fellow who could scarcely wait to get out of camp at sunrise, who took off his shoes and climbed barefoot across the polished granite, who followed the rhythm of his feet, fell in love with the song of the lark and the voice of flowers, who knew that "The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." BOYHOOD AND YOUTH It is a-truism about American literature that many of our great classics are boys' books. If Muir wrote children's literature in his later years, he did so as a conscious choice, As early as 1883, John Swett, Chas. Allen, and Josiah Royce had included selections from Muir's essays in textbooks they edited for fourth and fifth grade Californian students. Muir was pleased that his stories appealed to children. He always thought of Story of My Boyhood and Youth as a young folks' animal book, a chance to say some good words for "our poor earth bound companions and fellow mortals." Stickeen too had been, long before he wrote it down, a favorite story of his daughters and other little children like Gifford Pinchot. These kinds of tales allowed him to present a gentle sort of argument against the ingrained anthropocentric views of society, and he was interested in furthering the long neglected ethical education of children. In 1907, for instance, he wrote a letter to Daniel Beard, Published in the Women's Home Companion as "A New Top Notch |