Notes and Correspondence. 131 



Roosevelt on Scenic Beauty. 



On the occasion of the reception given to Colonel Theodore 

 Roosevelt by the Faculty Club of the University of California 

 a copy of Professor Willis Linn Jepson's book entitled "The 

 Silva of California" was presented to the honored guest of the 

 evening. The speech of presentation was made by Professor 

 Bernard Moses, who spoke as follows : — 



"My friends and colleagues, Mr. Roosevelt, wish me to give 

 expression to the sentiments which you have inspired in them 

 by your call to public righteousness and your efforts to con- 

 serve to us and our children the natural resources and the nat- 

 ural beauties of our country. They also wish me to give you 

 this volume, by Mr. Jepson, on the forests of California. 



"We of California, as all the world knows, are a modest folk. 

 We seldom boast of our State; we only say very simply that 

 the Lord never made a better land than this. But notwithstand- 

 ing our modest reticence, we are proud of our heritage, our hills 

 and valleys, our forests and mountains. We like our mountains, 

 and are glad that no man can pull them down and put them on 

 the market. We like our forests, but already the hand of the 

 spoiler is stretched out towards them, and, unless resistance is 

 offered, the glorious aisles of these nature temples, which no 

 man built, may yet become the waste places of the universe. 



"We are profoundly grateful to you, sir, for your efforts to 

 stay the destruction of the spoiler. To you and to some of us, 

 nature is something more than a mass of objects to be torn 

 asunder, and to be gathered in heaps and sold. Nature presents 

 an appeal to our sense of beauty; and, in the case of our mag- 

 nificent forests, which stand in solemn grandeur, it awakens 

 those higher sentiments akin to adoration. But every worship 

 must have its books of devotion, and for us, in our devotion to 

 the forests of California, one of our colleagues, Professor Jep- 

 son, has prepared this book for our guidance. In the name of 

 this little company, in the name of the University, in the name 

 of the author, whose work has conferred honor not only upon 

 us and the University, but also upon the State which gave him 

 birth, I beg leave to present this volume to you; and in doing 

 so let me offer the wish of all of us, that your voice may continue 

 to ring true yet these many years." 



In his response Mr. Roosevelt began by expressing his thank- 

 fulness for the book. Turning over the pages and looking at 

 the text and illustrations, he declared that it would be useful 

 in telling him what he most desired to know about the forests 

 of California. "This State," he said, "has been dowered with 



