COMMENTS ON KNEIPP's PAPER 559 



raises too many fundamental questions and carries with it too many 

 dangerous implications to go by unnoticed. 



The old, ever-recurrent controversy of the value of the college-trained 

 technical man versus the so-called practical, experienced, non-technical 

 man is not peculiar to the Forest Service. It is more or less inherent 

 in all organizations. Clear thinking on the subject would compel, it 

 seems, acceptance, as almost axiomatic, the general conclusion that, 

 other things being equal, the most thoroughly trained technical mind 

 gives the highest value return. Not to admit this conclusion would be 

 to deny obvious experience and would indicate the most casual and 

 superficial thinking on the whole subject. It would mean the glorifica- 

 tion of rule of thumb, satisfaction with the successful repetition of past 

 errors, the stagnation of progress, the discounting of scientific proc- 

 esses, and a denial of the part that the executive technician and the 

 technical specialist have both played in the last quarter century of bril- 

 liant achievement in all fields of human endeavor. 



Certainly no one will take issue with the emphasis put upon the 

 necessity for the possession of certain qualities of character as a pre- 

 requisite to success. Integrity, personality to impress people, sympathy 

 in personal relations, understanding of aims and purposes of the or- 

 ganization, ability to compromise, vision, breadth of view, ability to 

 analyze the sincerity or insincerity of the motives of men, idealism in 

 not too great a degree, tact and consideration, psychological sensitive- 

 ness, adaptability, and a few others are the qualities of character which 

 the article points out in considerable detail as indispensable to the suc- 

 cessful executive. Possessed of such qualifications, coupled with "a 

 mastery of all the major lines of work, supplemented by numerous 

 uimamed activities of minor character," combined with a thorough 

 technical training, the technical forester "may aspire to any position in 

 the organization up to and including that of forester." Does any one 

 doubt the capacity of a man on any "battlefield" who squares with the 

 specifications outlined? Will any one for a moment seriously argue 

 the ]xjint that fundamentally sound qualities of character and some 

 degree of personality are prerequisites of success either as an executive 

 or specialist in anything? Is the diminution of technical foresters in 

 the Forest Service organization due to the fact that they iiave not been 

 generally successful because of faulty training or because of a lack of 

 those qualities of character already outlined? Admitting a reasonable 

 degree of both. I imagine that a competent check of the entire number 

 of technically trained foresters who have entered the Forest Service, 

 those remaining, and those who have left, would perhaps show that the 



