The first notable assembling of men in the interest of conservation, chiefly of men already in public service--the President of the United States, the Vice-President, members of the cabinet, justices of the Supreme Court, members of Congress, the governors of thirty-four States, representatives of the other States, the governors of the Territories, and other public officials, with a number of representatives of societies and a few guests--met in 1908, to discuss questions relative to conservation. Probably not in the history of the nation has there sat in its borders an assembly of men so widely representative. This gathering resulted in the appointment of a National Conservation Commission by the President, but Congress made no appropriation for meeting the expense of its labors; and so private enterprise and providence have undertaken the carrying out of the movement. A great body of men and women scientists, public-spirited citizens from all parts of the nation, under the presidency of Doctor Charles W. Eliot, former president of Harvard University, began a campaign of education to the end that ultimately and soon--before the riches have gone--this concern for the far future may become fixed in the law and conscious provision of the people. I spoke in the last chapter of Hennepin's seeing a savage making sacrifice to the spirit of the Mississippi, supposed to live under the Falls of St. Anthony. You will recall the description of the great public university beside it that represents the sacrifice of the democracy of to-day for the nation of to-morrow. Instead of the beaver-skin which the poor Indian hung in the branches of a tree near the falls as his offering, the State has hung its gift of forty million dollars for the highest training of its sons and daughters. But there is still, if possible, a nobler aspiration to put against that primitive background and beside the Indian's beaver- skin, for the gift is as yet little more than an aspiration. A few miles back from these same falls there was held in 1910 a convention of many thousands from all parts of the Union, the President of the United States and his predecessor among them, assembled under the auspices of the National Conservation Congress to consider, as they avowed, not alone their own affairs, not even the good of their children with theirs, but primarily the welfare of unborn millions as well. It cannot be assumed that all were looking so far ahead, but the declaration of principles which had called this great assemblage had in it this import--something loftier than any declaration of personal rights. It was a declaration of duty--of duty not to the past, not even to the present, but to the long, long distant future.