190 



CONSERVATION 



cer's work as constituting, on the 

 whole, the alpha and the omega of the 

 task to which we are set. Now and 

 then I tell myself that the very highest 

 value of a first-rate Forest Service in 

 this day and generation is not so much 

 timber, or grazing, or even conserva- 

 tion of water, great as all these are, 

 now and forever. May it not be that 

 we are in a fair way to shape and cre- 

 ate that especial thing which America 

 has hitherto in some degree lacked — 

 the union, harmony and higher civiliza- 

 tion of many and scattered mountain 

 communities? I would not press this 

 thought too far and thus wreck it in 

 some word-desert, but I think it will 

 bear consideration. 



True, we are not policemen, nor 

 teachers, nor even humanitarians. We 

 are merely forest-workers, forest- 

 makers, imperfectly equipped, brought 

 up against new issues daily and hour- 

 ly, and making all sorts of precedents 

 for those more capable men of the fu- 

 ture, those children spiritually sprung 

 from our very loins, and carrying, for 

 all time to come, the passwords of our 

 earlier camps. Each of us all, in his 

 own rude way, must learn so to deal 

 with the frontier communities within 

 or near to his forest, that they shall 

 be helped and not hindered in the long 

 run, by his labor as the local adminis- 

 trator of the Service. In the long run, 

 too, these communities must come to 

 know beyond peradventure that they 

 are being so helped upward and onward 

 in their progress toward a finer civili- 

 zation. No one can truly accomplish 

 this in a day, nor in a year, and in 

 many places the work of a lifetime will 

 be needed to lay true and square the 

 cornerstones of our Temple of For- 

 estry. 



Least of all dare we to even think of 

 ourselves as "reformers." Let Paul 

 continue to plant and Apollos to water, 

 and He that giveth the increase will at 

 last bring our broadcast sowing of the 

 seeds of human fellowship through all 

 our frontier communities, from the 

 Mexican borders to the isles of Alaska, 

 into a golden and heavy-headed 

 harvest. 



Like Lord Cromer, each forest offi- 

 cer — whether an isolated ranger, 

 thrown so often on his own resources, 

 thumbing nightly his dimly-understood 

 U. B., or a well-equipped supervisor, 

 with his still larger responsibilities — is 

 sent to a very Egypt, to a land where 

 the brooding Sphinx looks far out over 

 the yellow desert, serene, eternal, and 

 asks of each wayfarer in those immense 

 wastes the waiting question that was 

 meant for him, and for none other, 

 from the birth-hour of time. Lord 

 Cromer heard, understood, and accept- 

 ed the Burden of Egypt, and of her an- 

 cient peoples. Through days of good 

 repute and of evil repute, through plots 

 and counterplots, through slanders and 

 abuse, and memorable upheavals he 

 toiled on unanswering, unembittered. 

 doing the Work of Egypt. Thus it 

 came to pass, when he was old and 

 worn out, that the foundations were 

 truly laid. Thus is he remembered in 

 world-history, not for the Assouan 

 Dam, not for the cotton-fields and mills, 

 not for the tawny, corporal-trained 

 Egyptian soldiers in the Soudan, not 

 even for his own marvelous financial 

 genius ; but chiefly because he was the 

 slow, patient, persistent organizer of 

 hundreds of struggling, ignorant, sus- 

 picious, and alien little village-commu- 

 nities scattered all over Egypt, into 

 something like a working whole. 



That was really great ! That was to be 

 one of the mighty line of modern pro- 

 consuls, English or American, who are 

 shaping half-savage colonies into the 

 beginnings of states and nations. One 

 puts in the list Lord Dufferin and Pres- 

 ident-elect Taft ; and I, for one, very 

 gladly put Sir Dietrich Brandis there. 

 I have learned a little of the forest- 

 peoples of India and their village laws, 

 usages and forest rights, and I can dim- 

 ly guess at the vast complexities of the 

 task which Brandis accomplished in 

 dealing so well with those millions of 

 hungry, suffering aliens. Yes ! India's 

 great forester was somehow so en- 

 dowed by the high gods that he faltered 

 no whit through all those wrestling 

 years, until he disentangled and slow- 

 lier knit together, in equitable and 



