Notes from Walden Pond #2

and Thoreau also said:

" There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the "best men," as the Algonquins called them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. "


and I say, here and now, that parents and governments that would rob children of this education make them slave to that government and false protection from things that may harm them. They will grow up with no sense of self preservation nor compassion.