The Moral Element of Conservation 1 



By Charles W. Eliot 

 President Emeritus of Harvard University 



ONE of the reasons for correlating national and beauty, of the immense beauty of the woods, and 



State conservation in the matter of forests in the streams, and brooks, and of the rivers which are fed by 



United States is that when a forest is taken charge the woods, 



of by the nation or by the state the good work is done I have traveled through northern Africa, for instance, 



for all time. It is a wonderful reward for any human and also to the northern shores of the Mediterranean, and 



effort that it ties 

 itself to eternity ; 

 that the human ef- 

 fort is directed to 

 an end of pure 

 beneficence, and 

 that end is going 

 on and on that 

 the object is to be 

 pursued genera- 

 tion after genera- 

 tion. 



When the 

 United States buys 

 1,372,000 acres of 

 forest in the White 

 Mountains and 

 the southern Ap- 

 palachians, it is 

 setting aside for 

 human use and en- 

 joyment a tract 

 which will never 

 come again into 

 private use. It is 

 a perpetual bene- 

 faction to the suc- 

 cessive generations 

 of men. 



It has been an 

 enormous privilege 

 that I have had to 

 work through a 

 life tolerably long 

 for an enduring 

 and growing insti- 

 tution of education. 

 Now there is an analagous satisfaction in working 

 for the cause in which you are enlisted, and there is an- 

 other satisfaction which perhaps those of you who have 

 passed most of your lives in Xew England do not fully 

 appreciate. It is an enormous satisfaction to feel that by 

 labor done in such a cause as this you promote, for the 

 benefit of future generations, the preservation of natural 



DR. CHARLES W. ELIOT 

 President-Emeritus of Harvard University, who was re-elected a vice-president of the 

 American Forestry Association at the meeting in Boston on January 17 and 18, 1916, 

 and who made a notable address at the annual forestry dinner. 



to Constantinople 

 by the Dardanelles, 

 and into some parts 

 of Asia Minor. All 

 through these 

 countries the gen- 

 eral character of 

 the landscape is 

 treeless, with the 

 exception of some 

 cultivated groves, 

 and there are few 

 of t h em. The 

 traveler in south- 

 ern Japan today 

 sees hill after hill, 

 with no forests ; 

 their groves are 

 artificial ; their 

 hills are not fertile 

 enough to bear any 

 crops useful to 

 man. It is an ex- 

 traordinary dimin- 

 ution of the beauty 

 of the landscape, 

 and it is also 

 diminution of the 

 opportunity of en- 

 joyment for the 

 inhabitants. There- 

 fore in Japan the 

 necessary adorn- 

 ment of a shrine 

 or temple has not 

 provided them with 

 anything like the 

 forests of New England or of the southern Appalachians. 

 The saving of the forests is a work of the highest 

 utility also. Large trades and occupations of men depend 

 on the forest, and it is a terrible waste we have been 

 doing for our country to cut oft the forests in order to 

 bare the soil. 



The chief element in conservation, whether of woods, 



'Address of Dr. Eliot at the joint forestry dinner at the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the American Forestry Association 

 at Boston, Massachusetts, January 17 and 18. 



165 



