THE TECHNICAL MAN's SHORTCOMINGS 381 



To begin with, the situation is this : ( i ) A technical forester is re- 

 quired for a position which demands a great variety of practical, scien- 

 tific, social, temperamental, and other qualifications; (2) the schools of 

 forestry take men of varying dispositions and temperaments and make 

 embryo foresters out of them; (3) now, (i) may coincide in every 

 respect with (2), but in 99 cases out of 100 it does not, due to the great 

 variations in human nature. But, no matter whether ( i ) coincides with 

 (2) or not, the Forest Service must try to fit the man to the job and 

 the job to the man. 



In most cases, therefore, it may be taken for granted that when a 

 technical man does not succeed it is due to dispositional or tempera- 

 mental characters and principally to a lack of flexibility to meet new 

 conditions. This lack of mental and physical readjustment to the new 

 environment is not due to any lack of training by the school, but to an 

 inborn inability to adapt one's self to new and changing conditions. 

 The new conditions of climate, customs, manners, people, and what-not 

 are the conditions of the West as distinct from those which obtain in 

 the East. And this, to my mind, is where most of the technical for- 

 esters have fallen down. But this is not due to the school, the Service, 

 or the man, for who will say that only Western men shall be allowed 

 to fill positions in the West? Where the fault lies is hard to say; it is 

 merely one of the non-ratable factors which appears in all new enter- 

 prises and undertakings. I look for the matter to work itself out. And 

 it is doing that very thing today. Foresters are gradually gravitating 

 back to their old environments and practicing forestry where the con- 

 ditions suit them. I look for the forest examiner of tlie near future to 

 come more and more from the environment in which he is to do his 

 work. He will have a great advantage over the city-bred Easterner, 

 because he will feel at home in the pioneer conditions of the West. 

 Thus will be eliminated many of the social and teniperaniental short- 

 comings ascribed to the present generation of technical men. It is a 

 great sifting-out process, and it is bound to continue so for many years, 

 because forestry is still in an embryonic condition — it is constantly de- 

 veloping and evolving. 



Then comes the question : ;\re the higher administrative men doing 

 their share to develop these embryo foresters after they get them? 

 Thev need more than to be reminded of their shortcomings. Tn order 

 to give the i)rospective technical forester greater familiarity with forest 

 administration as it works out under Western conditions, it may be 

 desirable for the Forest Service to require him to serve one or two 

 vears as a district forest ranger before he can become eligible for the 



