《野性之美》（《Ernest Thompson Seton: The Beauty of The Wild》）里面这么一则故事：

        一只孤儿狼——父母以及兄弟姐妹都被人类诛杀殆尽——成长为一只独来独往并善于识破人类一切捕狼伎俩的狼王，以及他和人类小孩之间深厚友谊的故事。由于不能杀尽狼窝里所有狼只的禁忌，捕狼人留下了年幼的狼王并带回家眷养，并非作为宠物，而是作为猎狗消遣的玩具，用各种方法对小狼进行折磨和羞辱，小狼从小就锻炼成坚强的性格，同时也在心中埋下了复仇的种子。家里只有小基默——捕狼人的儿子一人真心对待小狼。因为父亲酗酒并经常无端打闹小基默，小基默只能把狼王作为唯一的朋友，逐渐建立了一份人兽间真挚的友谊。狼王在任何情况下都会尽全力保护小基默，包括在他被酗酒的父亲出气时，也由于他对基默的感情，他对村子里的所有小孩也是极尽爱护。在小基默患上急病弥留之时，狼王不离不弃地守护在他身边，直至基默离开人世，狼王一同参与他的葬礼，并久久哀鸣了三天三夜，从此离开已经失去基默的家，返回野林。即使在后来狼王始终逃不过被猎杀的命运之后，村里的老人也会在基默的忌日听到墓地里悲哀孤独的狼嗥，他们说那是狼王的灵魂仍然在怀念他最好的朋友。

       这是一段怎样的传奇故事！狼这种被自以为是的人类视为兽界最残忍之一的动物，竟然有如此人性温情的一面！记得《妖兽都市》（The Wicked City, 1992, Director: 麦大杰）的片尾有这样的评论：都市里面充满着人类和妖兽，我们眼中看到的，是兽性的人，还是人性的兽？

       Seton说自己本来也是一个职业狩狼人，但是在和狼周旋的过程中对这种集美丽、高贵与指挥于一身的动物产生了浓厚的感情。它们坚忍强壮，全心全意地献身于家庭，有着灵敏纤细的感受，对于族群极度忠诚，对于伙伴充满热情，看了狼极具自律和一生专情的故事（“狼王诺波和他的爱人白兰克”），我现在才理解为什么张学友要挑选狼作为他的爱情组曲《雪狼湖》的主角。这个自然界最复杂和美丽的生命，属于它们的神秘绝非人类世界的金钱价值观所能简单地解释与体会的。

Definition/Life Highlights

    Ernest Thompson Seton was a naturalist, best-selling author, lecturer, and artist who studied wildlife and Native American culture. He is most widely known as the chairman of the committee that established the Boy Scouts of America and as the founder of Woodcraft Indians.

Historic Roots

     Seton was born in South Shields, Durham, England on August 14,1860. He was the eighth child in a family of ten sons. His parents moved the family to Lindsay, Ontario in 1866. It was in this remote wooded area of western Canada that his fascination with nature evolved.

      Seton was interested in art early in life. He studied art at numerous institutions throughout the world, including the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in London in 1879. He had been awarded a seven-year scholarship after winning numerous art contests, but chose to leave school due to poor living conditions and illness. Seton moved in with two of his older brothers in Manitoba, Canada, where he was able to expand his knowledge of natural history. He was named the official Naturalist for the Government of Manitoba from 1892-1946. In 1883, he attended the Art Students League in New York City. A year later, he studied at the Julian Academy in Paris, France. In 1885, he was given a contract by the Century Company to do 1000 mammal drawings for the Century Dictionary. Over his lifetime, he created 4,000 paintings, drawings, and sketches, predominately, of wildlife and nature. His work has been on display in museums and galleries in France, Canada, and the United States. He eventually received an honorary Master's Degree in Humanities from Springfield College, Massachusetts.

    Seton gained much of his knowledge by hiking and hunting in the prairie country of Manitoba in the final years of the 19th century. He used this knowledge as the basis for his animal stories. Studies in the Art Anatomy of Animals, was Seton's first published book. He went on to become a best-selling author with 60 books and thousands of articles to his credit. In 1898, he wrote his most famous book of animal stories, Wild Animals I Have Known, which has been published in a dozen languages.

    In 1902, Seton founded Woodcraft Indians. It was a group of a dozen young boys who met on weekends to study nature. In 1906, Seton met Sir Robert Baden-Powell in England to help develop the Boy Scout movement. In 1910, he wrote the first Boy Scout Manual and was made the first Chief Scout of the Boy Scouts of America. Though the Boy Scouts had adopted many of the principles of Seton's Woodcraft Indians upon its inception in England in 1907, Seton left the Scouting movement in 1915 because he disagreed with the military style set by Baden-Powell. However, he did receive the Silver Buffalo Award from the Boy Scouts of America in 1926, the year of the award's inception.

    After resigning from the Boy Scouts, Seton founded the Woodcraft League of America, similar to his original Woodcraft Indians. It served as a co-educational organization serving all ages. Seton established a program he called "brownies" in 1921 for age 6 through 11 girls and boys. This program serves as the origin of the Brownies in the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.

    In 1930, Seton moved to New Mexico, where he spent the rest of his life. In Santa Fe, he built a castle on 100 acres and continued to train leaders in Woodcraft.

Importance

    Woodcrafters are committed to seeking knowledge, pursuing truth and beauty, increasing tolerance and understanding, and to improving social and environmental conditions through personal and collective action coupled with creativity and imagination" (ETSI, 2).

    Seton was deeply concerned with the future of the prairie. He fought strenuously to establish reservations for Native Americans and parks for animals threatened by extinction.

Ties to the Philanthropic Sector

    Seton's contributions to the philanthropic sector are most measurable in the inception and growth of the Scouting movement in America. In fact, by also inspiring Baden-Powell and contributing to his model of scouting, Seton affected an activity participated in by boys and girls throughout the world. Since the first official American Boy Scout troop began in 1910, the organization has had close to 90 million members. Seton's naturalist instincts, lessons and respect for nature carry on in the nonprofit scouting troops in our country and across the world.

    In addition, the Ernest Thompson Seton Institute was established to "preserve the physical treasures Seton left behind and spread the spiritual treasures he bequeathed" (ETSI). The Institute is designed to promote scholarship; understanding of and interest in the works, teachings, philosophy, and historical legacy of Seton and of the Woodcraft League; and to catalog, study, and collect his works, illustrations, drawings, paintings, historical properties, sculptures, and collections.

Key Related Ideas

• Environment
• Natural Art
• Naturalism
• Natural History
• Scouting Movement
• Zoology

Related Nonprofit Organizations

• Boy Scouts of America
• Campfire Club of America (now Campfire Boys and Girls)
• Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.

Organizations Seton belonged to:

• American Bison Society
• American Institute of Arts and Letters
• American Museum of Natural History
• American Ornithology Association
• Campfire Club of America - Charter member and President
• Explorers Club, New York
• New York Zoological Society
• Woodcraft Indians
• Woodcraft League of America

Bibliography

The Boy Scouts of America. Founders of Scouting and the BSA [online].
Available: www.scouting.org/factsheets/02-211.html. (16 October 2000).

ETSI, Ernest Thompson Seton Institute. Woodcraft [online]. Available: www.etsetoninstitute.org. (4 October 2000).

Gilbert, Bill. Ernest Thompson Seton [online]. Smithsonian Magazine, July 1997.

Available: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues97/jul97/seton.html.
(23 October 2000).

Seton, Ernest Thompson. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia [online]. Available: http://encarta.msn.com/. (23 October 2000).

Additional Books Available:

The Chief: Ernest Thompson Seton and the Changing West by H. Allen Anderson

Ernest Thompson Seton: Man in Nature and the Progressive Era, 1880 - 1915 by John H. Wadland

Ernest Thompson Seton, Scout and Naturalist by Wyatt Blassingame

Selected Stories of Ernest Thompson Seton by Patricia Morely

Black Wolf: The Life of Ernest Thompson Seton by Betty Keller

The Order of Woodcraft Chivalry 1916-1949 As a New Age Alternative to the Boy Scouts by Derek Edgell