670 A NATIONAL SCHOOL OF FORESTRY. [Mar. 



discharge of their duties. Tliis is very urgently wanted here, and I 

 trnst that the strong recommendation in this direction which our 

 committee is sure to malvC, will end in some practical arrangement 

 of the kind. The case of Canada seems to be more pressing even 

 than ours, and I shall look forward hopefully to the day when her 

 Forest School of the future may work in harmonious but energetic 

 rivalry with our own. 



OJV THE EMPLOYMENT OF NATIONAL FUNDS IN THE 

 ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL SCHOOL OF 

 FORESTRY. 



BY REV. J. C. BROWX, LL.D. 



IN" view of the possibility of tlie committee, appointed at the 

 International Forestry Exhibition, relative to the organization 

 of a ISTational School of Forestry, not succeeding in raising the 

 XI 0,0 00 they deem requisite with a view to the endowment of a 

 Professorship of Forestry in the University of Edinburgh, and in 

 view of the possibility which there is of adapting to the require- 

 ments of a School of Forestry, arrangements in connection witli the 

 Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, similar to those in the 

 Eoyal School of Mines and Practical Geology in London, and iu 

 the Pioyal College of Science in Dublin, the respective museums 

 with which they are connected, — there may be raised now the 

 question — Would the expenditure necessary for tliis purpose be 

 a legitimate application of State funds ? 



I think it would be so ; and I desire to state a few facts bearing 

 upon the matter. Such an application of State funds has been 

 made in other countries ; and the principle underlying this has been 

 accepted and acted on in our own. The amount required at first 

 need not be large ; and if proper security be taken against unneces- 

 sary increase of expenditure, any increase of this would be occasioned 

 only by a perception that the increase would increase the efficiency 

 of the organization to an extent justifying the additional expendi- 

 ture. And it is reasonable to expect that the community would be 

 benefited by such an organization to an extent more than equivalent 

 to the expenditure incurred. 



I know more or less of, I think, every School of Forestry on 

 the continent of Europe, comprising schools in almost every country 

 there, and I know of none which is not maintained largely, if 

 not exclusively, by the State. The underlying fact shows that 

 statesmen elsewhere, under absolute and limited monarchies and 



