FORESTRY EDUCATION 385 



would put your name on file"), with lumber companies (^ which seemed 

 curiously suspicious of his ability to be of service to them), with insti- 

 tutions of learning (which needed $3,000 men, and could only aflford 

 to pay $1,200, with inevitable results), and with others too numerous 

 to mention. And looming over all was the "Civil Service," that twelve- 

 hour orgy of erudition, during which the harassed and care-worn 

 student was required to disgorge his entire stock of technical wisdom, 

 in return for which he might, many months later, receive a laconic 

 statement that he had passed (or failed) the examination by .003 per 

 cent, or thereabouts. In other words, those were the days when all 

 worlds lay before one to conquer, and the average man had no more 

 idea where he would be five years hence, or in what line of forestry 

 work, than if he had never read or studied a word of forestry. Occa- 

 sionally, of course, some man of maturer mind or earlier practical 

 experience had a pretty definite idea upon graduation of the kind of 

 work he intended to go into, and what kinds of work he would avoid, 

 but in general the forest school graduate of a few years ago was 

 willing to tackle almost any forestry job that came along, and work 

 out his destiny gradually. I do not believe this situation has changed 

 materially. This being so, what type of training will the majority 

 of men most profit by? 



In my opinion, and in this I beg to differ from what appears to 

 be the accepted doctrine of the day, what forestry education needs is 

 not specialization, but generalization. Forestry, more perhaps than 

 most professions, needs men of catholicity and broad training rather 

 than specialists. This is of course a generality. I do not mean that 

 we have no need of men of highly specialized scientific knowledge, 

 and that it is a mistake to afford opportunities for investigators in 

 pure science. I do mean, on the other hand, that in the present state 

 of development of forestry in America the demand is small for such 

 men, compared with the need for two very different types of men — 

 administrators, business men, if you please, and propagandists. Search 

 your memory a moment, and compare the number of foresters of 

 your acquaintance or knowledge who have fallen down on adminis- 

 trative or propaganda work, with those who have made a failure of 

 investigation and research. Is not the latter far smaller? Are there 

 not far more men in our profession who have come to grief at some 

 time or other of their careers because they did not understand how 

 to handle men. co.ild not deal readily with the public, could not 



