FORESTRY EDUCATION :]S\) 



badly, and that Mr. Pinchot's dictum still holds, that "forestry is being 

 practiced everywhere but in the woods?" It is certain that with but 

 two schools out of six requiring public speaking, we can have little 

 hope that the spoken word will outrun the written word in advancing 

 forestry, little arduous as the race would have to be. 



If Mr. Bryant's desire for forester-economists is to be fulfilled, we 

 shall have to do better than the three year-hours of economics offered 

 by two of our six schools, and the one or one-and-a-half oft'ered by 

 two others. The writer speaks with feeling on this point, for three 

 hours of economics was all that he took while at college, and in spite 

 of a reasonable degree of application he finds himself hopelessly lost 

 when the question of Federal forest-loan banks comes up, and similar 

 topics. He believes that the courses in business training are a step 

 in the right direction, so far as they may serve as a substitute for 

 economics in giving the forester a proper perspective in which to view 

 his work. But would it be not only better, but also entirely feasible, 

 to include under some such heading a study of what for lack of better 

 name might be termed busines psychology, so far as that subject may be 

 taught at all outside of the great university of experience? A certain 

 State forester has told me that in his State he considers forestry to 

 be 10 per cent trees and 90 per cent people. Is not the average for- 

 estry course, as evidenced by the above analyses of typical under- 

 graduate curricula, 90 or 100 per cent trees? We have taken too 

 seriously the scientific aspects of our profession, in our forestry educa- 

 tion, and left our forest school graduates to dig up the human rela- 

 tionships after graduation. We know considerable about forests, but 

 have lately been obliged to confess that we have not paid much atten- 

 tion to the owners of the forests, with disastrous results. The lumber- 

 men can scarcely be blamed for not understanding forestry when the 

 foresters have taken so litle pains to equip themselves to understand 

 either lumbering or lumbermen. Judging from recent events, wisdom 

 in that direction at least has not accompanied grey hairs. 



In conclusion let me say that the graduate schools can take little 

 unction to their souls on the score that their curicula have invariably 

 been a material improvement upon the undergraduate forestry courses. 

 In my poor judgment the chief advantage of the graduate course lies 

 not in the broader curiculum, but in the ordinarily more capable in- 

 struction (the graduate schools being older, and in the beginning 

 wealthier, have had stronger faculties), and in the mingling of some- 

 what older and more mature men, from several sections of the countrv 



