l and nation alike.
Because thousands of those whom the expositions were expected to draw
westward would avail of the opportunity to visit national parks,
Secretary Lane, to whom the national parks suggested neglected
opportunity requiring business experience to develop, induced Stephen T.
Mather, a Chicago business man with mountain-top enthusiasms, to
undertake their preparation for the unaccustomed throngs. Mr. Mather's
vision embraced a correlated system of superlative scenic areas which
should become the familiar playgrounds of the whole American people, a
system which, if organized and administered with the efficiency of a
great business, should even become, in time, the rendezvous of the
sightseers of the world. He foresaw in the national parks a new and
great national economic asset.

The educational and other propaganda by which this movement was
presented to the people, which the writer had the honor to plan and
execute, won rapidly the wide support of the public. To me the national
parks appealed powerfully as the potential museums and classrooms for
the popular study of the natural forces which made, and still are
making, America, and of American fauna and flora. Here were set forth,
in fascinating picture and lines so plain that none could fail to read
and understand, the essentials of sciences whose real charm our rapid
educational methods impart to few. This book is the logical outgrowth of
a close study of the national parks, beginning with the inception of the
new movement, from this point of view.

How free from the partisan considerations common in governmental
organization was the birth of the movement is shown by an incident of
Mr. Mather's inauguration into his assistant secretaryship. Secretary
Lane had seen him at his desk and had started back to his own room. But
he returned, looked in at the door, and asked:

[Illustration: _Copyright by Haynes, St. Paul_

THE GIANT GEYSER--GREATEST IN THE WORLD

Yellowstone National Park]

"Oh, by the way, Steve, what are your politics?"

This book considers our national parks as they line up four years after
the beginning of this movement. It shows them well started upon the long
road to realization, with Congress, Government, and the people united
toward a common end, with the schools and the universities interested,
and, for the first time, with the railroads, the concessioners, the
motoring interests, and many of the public-spirited educational and