563 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



( I ) His conclusions are based upon superficial observations not sup- 

 ported by statistics; (2) he has a misconception of the term "forest 

 management"; (3) he makes comparisons between items not properly- 

 comparable, and (4) he has failed to see the situation in its proper set- 

 ting, or, in other words, he failed to consider all influencing conditions. 

 The first two of these have already been discussed by Toumey and 

 Spring. Concerning the third, he has failed to distinguish between the 

 inherent temperamental qualities of the individual and his purely tech- 

 nical ability, and likewise between the major and the minor or acces- 

 sory activities of National Forest work. In both of these Kneipp makes 

 comparisons (rather unconsciously) that are not justifiable. All of 

 what Kneipp says concerning the human side of the question is true, 

 but to endow the non-technical man with all these qualities and deny 

 them to a large proportion of the technical men, which he does by infer- 

 ence, is the false premise upon which a good deal of his fallacious 

 reasoning rests. 



It also seems very probable that Kneipp has not made a clear distinc- 

 tion between the genuine non-technical men and those who because of 

 years of training in some one special field are, obviously, specialists, 

 and hence really technicians in a very limited field. There is a consid- 

 erable number of such in the Service who have a very special value, 

 but who are lost in the majority of broad, general Service problems 

 (and who for this reason sometimes offer serious obstacles to advance- 

 ment in connection with problems to which their specialty has only an 

 accessory or service relationship). It takes a rather fine distinction to 

 determine which of these latter should be considered technical and 

 which non-technical men. While they may have had very little school- 

 ing, they have had many years of training, and with it acquired a rather 

 important, though a very limited, field of usefulness. If he had con- 

 sidered this relationship there would undoubtedly have been some refer- 

 ence to it. Everything, however, points to conclusions based upon 

 superficial observations without recourse to any statistical data. 



The management of human affairs is more a matter of temperament 

 than of technical education. Temperament is the product of the in- 

 herited qualities of generations of ancestors modified slightly by per- 

 sonal experience. A good} course in psychology and a broad associa- 

 tion with humans of any description would undoubtedly help, but un- 

 fortunately we are still a long way from the use of these as adjuncts to 

 the technical curricula. 



^ The word "good" is here italicized to emphasize that very few of the courses 

 in psychology as taught in American universities are worth much from this stand- 

 point. 



