Mifflin & Company; “Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer, copyright by George H. Doran Company; “Uphill,” from “Poems,” by Christina Rossetti, copyright by Little, Brown & Company, Publishers, Boston; “Overflow,” by John Banister Tabb, copyright by Small, Maynard & Company; “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” by William Butler Yeats, copyright by The Macmillan Company. None of the above material should be reprinted without securing permission. COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS To GEORGE J. FISHER AT WHOSE INSTANCE, AND WITH WHOSE KINDLY AID, THESE PAGES WERE WRITTEN CONTENTS I. HOW TO WALK 1 Posture--Wearing Apparel--Equipment--Care of Body and Equipment--Companions. II. WHEN TO WALK 39 At What Season--The Hours of the Day--Speed and Distance--Stunt Walking--Championship Walking--Competitive Walking. III. WHERE TO WALK 63 Choice of Surroundings--Nature of Country--The Goal and the Road--Maps--Walking by Compass. IV. WALKING CLUBS IN AMERICA 79 The Appalachian Mountain Club--The Green Mountain Club--Wanderlust of Philadelphia--Walking Clubs of New York--Some Western Clubs--Association of Mountaineering Clubs. V. ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF WALKING CLUBS 103 The Activities of a Walking Club--Rules for Hiking--A Club Constitution--Juvenile Clubs--League of Walkers. BIBLIOGRAPHY 141 HOW TO WALK I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going _à la Sainte Terre_,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from _sans terre_, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. --Henry D. Thoreau, “Walking.” I HOW TO WALK Observe the vigorous man as he walks: the stride is long and free; the feet come surely and firmly to the ground, without twist or jar, toes pointed straight ahead; the pelvis, swaying easily, carries an erect body; the arms swing in alternate rhythm with the legs; the head is borne free over all; breathing is deep and long; the blood courses strongly. Every member shares in the activity. WEARING APPAREL It must be the pedestrian’s ideal, when he comes to consider the matters of clothing and burden, in the least possible degree to interfere with these full natural bodily motions: Clothing, while serving its purposes of protection, must not bind nor rub; it may help to maintain, but it may not disturb normal circulation. Burdens must be so imposed as to be sustained with least effort, and to leave the limbs unincumbered. _Footgear_ is of first importance. If one is to walk comfortably, pleasurably, effectively, the muscles of the feet must have free play; there may...