Study Questions
1. What was John Muir’s attitude toward formal religion? How did his father’s religiosity affect him? In what sense did religion enter into his relationship with nature?
2. How did Muir come to devote himself to the wilderness? Explain the role of the following: his boyhood, the university, business experience, a sharp file, the thousand-mile walk, writing, Louie, timber, and sheep interests.
3. In what ways did John Muir contribute to the preservation of American wilderness? Explain why he became a conservationist as well as a naturalist.
4. What arguments were voiced on each side in the Hetch Hetchy fight?
5. Compare and contrast John Muir and Andrew Carnegie, especially their relations with other people, their abilities, and their ideas of the good society. Which man contributed more to America?
6. Why did conservationism make a start as a national movement in the late nineteenth century? Would the movement have begun if John Muir had not lived?
1. What was John Muir’s attitude toward formal religion? How did his father’s religiosity affect him? In what sense did religion enter into his relationship with nature?
2. How did Muir come to devote himself to the wilderness? Explain the role of the following: his boyhood, the university, business experience, a sharp file, the thousand-mile walk, writing, Louie, timber, and sheep interests.
3. In what ways did John Muir contribute to the preservation of American wilderness? Explain why he became a conservationist as well as a naturalist.
4. What arguments were voiced on each side in the Hetch Hetchy fight?
5. Compare and contrast John Muir and Andrew Carnegie, especially their relations with other people, their abilities, and their ideas of the good society. Which man contributed more to America?
6. Why did conservationism make a start as a national movement in the late nineteenth century? Would the movement have begun if John Muir had not lived?