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In 1865 Frederick Law Olmsted wrote one of his most important reports justifying the preservation of nature for future generations and saying "...the enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body, gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system."

In 1865 Frederick Law Olmsted wrote one of his most important reports justifying the preservation of nature for future generations and saying "...the enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body, gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system."

In urging the preservation of Yosemite Valley for everyone to enjoy, he states: "This duty of preservation is the first which falls upon the State..., because the millions who are hereafter to benefit ...have the largest interest in it, and the largest interest should be first and most strenuously guarded." He includes descriptions of the beautiful features of Yosemite Valley, but then writes that: "The union of the deepest sublimity with the deepest beauty of nature, not in one feature or another, not in one part or one scene or another, not in any landscape that can be framed by itself, but all around and wherever the visitor goes, constitutes the Yo Semite the greatest glory of nature. No photograph or series of photographs, no paintings ever prepare a visitor so that he is not taken by surprise, for could the scenes be faithfully represented the visitor is affected not only by that upon which his eye is at any moment fixed, but by all that with which on every side it is associated, and of which it is seen only as an inherent part. For the same reason no description, no measurements, no comparisons are of much value. Indeed the attention callled by these to points in some definite way remarkable, by fixing the mind on mere matters of wonder or curiosity prevent the true and far more extraordinary character of the scenery from being appreciated." [The Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove by Frederick Law Olmsted 1865]

The report, which he presented at the Yosemite Commission meeting in August 1865, was surpressed by three of his fellow commissioners after he left California for New York City in November 1865 and was not discovered until 1952 by Laura Wood Roper when she determined that F.L. Olmsted's letter to the New York Evening Post, June 18, 1868, represented the missing pages 5-14 of the manuscript found in the Olmsted papers at the Olmsted Brothers office. His report urged a very careful management of the scenic resource in order to preserve it for future generations to enjoy, but also strongly recommended that the resource of its natural scenery was for benefit all people, not just for the wealthy. He wanted to improve access while at the same time protect all the features of the park which make it unique. This he saw as a duty of the State of Califormia which had been given management responsibilty by the Yosemite Act by Congress in 1864 - An Act Authorizing a Grant to the State of California of the "Yo-Semite Valley," and of the land embracing the "Mariposa Big Tree Grove."

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