328 ATTACK ON FRENCH FOREST SERVICE. [March 



application or practical studies in the forests for one year under 

 a forest officer. They are then gazetted into the service, with 

 the rank of Garde Gt'nt^ral. At Nancy, the instruction comprises 

 Forestry in all its branches, — Mineralogy, Botany, Geology, Ento- 

 mology, Land Surveying, Eoad Making and Simple Engineering 

 Works, Bridge Building, and Forest Legislation ; the pupils also 

 receive military instruction, and on leaving the school are at once 

 gazetted as officers in the Eeserve, without doing any fiu-ther 

 military service. 



The School of Barres is open to all forest subordinates, not 

 exceeding tliirty-five years of age, who have j)erformed four years" 

 military service (or, being the sons of old foresters, two years), on 

 passing a qualifying entrance examination, and presenting certifi- 

 cates of exemplary conduct. The examination is in French ("reading 

 and writing), the elements of arithmetic and geometry, with some 

 notions of the history and geography of France. They are also 

 examined in their knowledge of the methods of cubing trees, and 

 measuring and estimating the value of standing and felled crops of 

 timber. The instruction at the school, as at Nancy, extends over 

 two years. It embraces arithmetic, elementary geometry, surveying 

 and levelling, and the elements of sylviculture, forest management, 

 and forest law. On passing out of the school, the pupils enter the 

 service as Gardes Generaux under exactly the same conditions as 

 those from Xaucy. 



Allowing for four years' military service (or two years if the son 

 of an old forester), with one year additional for obtaining the appoint- 

 ment as a Forest Guard, a young man may enter the School of 

 Barres at either twenty-three or twenty-five years of age. Now, as 

 the limit of age for promotion to inspector is fift3'-two j-ears, while 

 only ten j-ears after passing into the service is the minimum time 

 for promotion to that grade, it is clear that there is an abundant 

 margin of time for a young man of intelligence to obtain his pro- 

 motion before he is superannuated. The complaint, therefore, that 

 the pupils of the Barres School are debarred by limit of age from 

 obtaining the higher appointments of the service is utterly ground- 

 less, seeing that they are made not by seniority, but by selection 

 from among the inspectors. 



This being the case, the adversaries of the Nancy School, knowing 

 that the complaint would not hold water, conceived the unfortunate 

 idea of levelling down Nancy to the Barres standard by reducing 

 half the professorial staff; for it was plain, that as long as the 

 Nancy pupils held their present educational superiority, it would be 

 impossible for those from Barres really to compete with them in the 

 long run for the prizes of the service. To so retrograde a measure 



