Transcript The Woods - St. Francis Episcopal Day School

Dedication Week
Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

 1817-1862
 He was an American writer.
 He spent two years in a self-built cabin along Walden
Pond where he went to live simply and enjoy the beauty
of nature. He wrote about his experiences there in a
book called Walden.
 The name “The Woods” for our outdoor classroom
comes directly from a very famous quote from the book.
In addition, most of the names within the classroom
either came directly from or were inspired by his
writings.
Walden Pond

Walden Pond

Concord, Massachusetts

The Woods

“I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
life, and see if I could not learn what it had to
teach, and not, when I came to die, discover
that I had not lived.”

The Living Earth

Gardening Area
“The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history,
stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be
studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living
poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers
and fruit – not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared
with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life
is merely parasitic.”
The Artist

Nature Art Area
“When I see on the one side the inert bank, --for the
sun acts on one side first – and on the other this
luxuriant foliage, the creation of an hour, I am affected as
if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the
Artist who made the world and me – had come to where
he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with
excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about.”
The Endeavor

Building Area
“I learned this at least, by my experiment; that if one
advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common
hours.”
The Awakening

Butterfly Garden
“To be awake is to be alive…We must learn to
reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not my
mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of
the dawn, which does not forsake us in our
soundest sleep.”
The Castle

Original Classroom Behind PII
“If you have built castles in the air, your work
need not be lost; that is where they should
be. Now put the foundations under them.”
The Path

Pathway to Original Classroom
“To make a deep mental path, we must think
over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to
dominate our lives.”
God’s Drop

Chapel and Meeting Area
“The cars never pause to look at it [Walden Pond]; yet I
fancy that the engineers and firemen and brakemen, and
those passengers who have a season ticket and see it often,
are better men for the sight. The engineer does not forget
at night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this
vision of serenity and purity once at least during the
day. Though seen but once, it helps to wash out Statestreet and the engine's soot. One proposes that it be called
‘God's Drop.’”
God’s Palette and
The Concert

God’s Palette: Wildflower Garden
The Concert: Music Area
The above names are not attributed to a direct
quote, but rather inspired by Thoreau’s
description of both the sights and sounds of
nature – the beautiful “palette” of colors that
the Artist (God) uses, as well as the “concert”
of sounds a person can hear if one pauses long
enough to listen.
The Dig and
The Tree House

 These names were inspired by science and imagination
rather than by Thoreau.