188G.] A NATIONAL SCHOOL OF FORESTRY. 737 



" Such lieavy charges can only be afforded by the opulent classes, 

 and very much exceed the cost of training for any otlier profession 

 in this country. Tliey are also (juite prohibitory to the young men 

 best qualified by nature and early training for filling the office of 

 forest officers in India or elsewlieie. For less than half that cost 

 per head per annum wq train our clergy, doctors, lawyers, naval and 

 military officers, engineers, etc.; in fact, we do not know of any 

 professional training which necessarily requires such an enormous 

 e.Kpeuditure for such poor results. Suppose there is an animal 

 average of fifteen pupils being trained at Nancy for the Indian 

 forest service. This would give a total cost of £3300 per annum. 

 Such a large sum properly expended in training forest students in a 

 Forest Department in connection with any of our universities would 

 train fifty students in place of fifteen, and make much superior men 

 of them for the duties they are called on to perform in the manage- 

 ment of our home, colonial, and Indian forests. The sjKcicd training 

 for India, or any colony, should be taught in that country. The 

 science and technics of forestry can be better and more economically 

 taught in Britain than anywhere else, and the practical training 

 specially necessary for any particular country cannot be so well 

 taught anywhere as on the spot where it has to be put into 

 practice." 



In such circumstances, tliere was made to the Council of the 

 Arboricultural Society in 1878 an offer of the delivery of a series of 

 twelve, twenty, fifty, or any number of lectures which might be desired, 

 on the " Forest Lands, Forest Science, and Forest Economy of Con- 

 tinental Europe," with recapitulations, examinations, and perusals of 

 reports by the students of observations, or other exercises, all witli a 

 view to testing by experiment whether the Continental School of 

 Forestry can be adapted to the conditions of our country. 



Xothing came of this ; but the Society having in the following 

 year, 1879, published in their annual report that they had for many 

 years sought, in the interests of the country, to secure the establish- 

 ment of a School of Forestry in Scotland, there was made to them 

 in the autumn of 1881 an offer of the delivery of seventy-five 

 lectures, and class examinations on subjects comprised in Forst- 

 Wissenschaft or Forest Science, if they would provide a class of not 

 fewer than twelve students, take the direction of the other studies of 

 the class, test by appropriate periodical examinations the attainments 

 being made by the students, and meet from their funds the necessary 

 expenses, but recouping themselves so far as practicable by fees, so 

 as to demonstrate the practicability of the measure. The Secretary 

 replied to the effect that the proposal had been submitted to the 

 Education Committee and Council of the Societv, and, wliea fullv 



