are the great unoccupied spaces. They are the large
environments in which we live but which we do not make. The backgrounds
are the sky with its limitless reaches; the silences of the sea; the
tundra in pallid arctic nights; the deserts with their prismatic colors;
the shores that gird the planet; the vast mountains that are beyond
reach; the winds, which are the universal voice in nature; the
sacredness of the night; the elemental simplicity of the open fields;
and the solitude of the forest. These are the facts and situations that
stand at our backs, to which we adjust our civilization, and by which we
measure ourselves.

The great conquest of mankind is the conquest of his natural conditions.
We admire the man who overcomes: the sailor or navigator in hostile and
unknown seas; the engineer who projects himself hard against the
obstacles; the miner and the explorer; the builder; the farmer who
ameliorates the earth to man's use.

But even though we conquer or modify the physical conditions against
which we are set, nevertheless the backgrounds will remain. I hope that
we may always say "The forest primeval." I hope that some reaches of the
sea may never be sailed, that some swamps may never be drained, that
some mountain peaks may never be scaled, that some forests may never be
harvested. I hope that some knowledge may never be revealed.

Look at your map of the globe. Note how few are the areas of great
congestion of population and of much human activity as compared with the
vast and apparently empty spaces. How small are the spots that represent
the cities and what a little part of the earth are the political
divisions that are most in the minds of men! We are likely to think that
all these outlying and thinly peopled places are the wastes. I suspect
that they contribute more to the race than we think. I am glad that
there are still some places of mystery, some reaches of hope, some
things far beyond us, some spaces to conjure up dreams. I am glad that
the earth is not all Iowa or Belgium or the Channel Islands. I am glad
that some of it is the hard hills of New England, some the heathered
heights of Scotland, some the cold distances of Quebec, some of it the
islands far off in little-traversed seas, and some of it also the
unexplored domains that lie within eyesight of our own homes. It is well
to know that these spaces exist, that there are places of escape. They
add much to the ambition of the race; they make f