Speaker laments a generation of laziness

John Stilgoe, professor in the history of landscape at Harvard University's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, spoke to over 200 students Wednesday night. His talk was entitled "Wilderness Exertion and Physical Infirmity: Disaster by 2015" and featured a humorous speech aided by a slide show. It was the third discussion in the Graduate School of Fine Arts Fall Lecture Series. The professor discussed the trend toward infirmity and unhealthiness in the coming years. He made various comparisons to past decades about physical activity and the unwillingness of people to do things for themselves without mechanical aids. "There was a time when people went boating using oars," Stilgoe said. "There was also a time when a young girl on her 15th birthday could be fitted for a rowing boat built by a mastercraftsman to fit her exact specifications. How far could that young girl row that boat? We don't know because people don't think that way right now." The professor's point was that today people no longer want to be active or use energy. People would rather travel on water in a motor boat because it's easier and faster. Stilgoe continued to show a picture of an empty beautiful beach on the Fourth of July. According to Stilgoe, the reason it was empty was because the water is too shallow to get there by motor boat. In order to reach the beach one would have to row there and people today are less likely to expend the energy. Stilgoe also believes that today's generation of children are less active and more "infirm", pointing to newspaper clippings displayed on a large screen about children gaining weight while watching television. Other examples of infirmity that Stilgoe cited were people unable to take the straight line sobriety test even when they were sober and people using handicap accesses because it's easier to walk up a ramp than the stairs. The audience, in general, enjoyed Stilgoe's lecture -- laughing at his jokes and staying attentive throughout the one and one-half hour lecture and the reception that followed. University graduate student Elise Adibe said she had heard him once before at Harvard. "He is a provocative and iconoclastic speaker, and I believe there is some truth to his ideas." Adibe said. "Some of his examples are tragic. I agree that children are not exposed to enough exercise." Stilgoe is the author of Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845, for which he was awarded the Francis Parkman Prize by the Society of American Historians.