oes not mean that the
local point of view is always to control. On the contrary, the Forest
Officer must often decide against it in the interest of the welfare of
the larger public. But the desires and demands of the users of the
forest should always be given the fullest hearing and the most careful
consideration. To this rule there is no exception whatsoever.

PERSONAL EQUIPMENT

Forestry differs from most professions in this, that it requires as much
vigor of body as it does vigor of mind. The sort of man to which it
appeals, and which it seeks, is the man with high powers of observation,
who does not shrink from responsibility, and whose mental vigor is
balanced by physical strength and hardiness. The man who takes up
forestry should be little interested in his own personal comfort, and
should have and conserve endurance enough to stand severe physical work
accompanied by mental labor equally exhausting.

Foresters are still few in numbers, and the point of view which they
represent, while it is making immense strides in public acceptance, is
still far from general application. Therefore, Foresters are still
missionaries in a very real sense, and since they are so few, it is of
the utmost importance that they should stand closely together.
Differences of opinion there must always be in all professions, but
there is no other profession in which it is more important to keep these
differences from working out into animosities or separations of any
kind. We are fortunate above all in this, that American Foresters are
united as probably the members of no other profession. This _esprit de
corps_ has given them their greatest power of achievement, and any man
who proposes to enter the profession should do so with this fact clearly
in mind.

The high standard which the profession of forestry, new in the United
States, has already reached, its great power for usefulness to the
Nation, now and hereafter, and the large responsibilities which fall so
quickly on the men who are trained to accept it--all these things give
to the profession a position and dignity which it should be the first
care of every man who enters it to maintain or increase.

To stand well at graduation is or ought to be far less the object of a
Forester's training than to stand well ten or twenty years after
graduation. It is of the first importance that the training should be
thorough and complete.

A friend of mine, John Muir, says that the