644 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



because, as he put it, "his accompHshments are all in an allied field, 

 with nothing to show in forestry." 



The term "forester," in its literal sense, is indeed a term of limited 

 meaning. The terms used to designate other worthy professions are 

 not quite so limited, nor, would it seem, are these professions so jealous. 

 "Civil engineering," for example, is so broad a term that the profession 

 can claim almost any really good technical man, and it welcomes him 

 with open arms. Of course, we emphatically do not want to dignify 

 all of the tree doctors, forest guards, and others who have little or no 

 professional training with the title of forester ; but there is growing up 

 within our profession a group of specialists who are only to a lesser 

 degree concerned with silvicultural practice and forest management, 

 and whose special lines of endeavor are the direct outgrowth of the 

 activities of the Forest Service and the forest schools. Such, for ex- 

 ample, are the specialists in various of the "products" lines. These men 

 are being claimed b}- the engineers, who have no right to them. They 

 are a real product of forestry.* 



A comparison of the forest-school curricula with the various activi- 

 ties of the Forest Service and the forest industries will show that the 

 schools have not digressed very far from their proper functions. If 

 they are deserving of any criticism it should rather be for not following 

 up more closely the needs of their graduates as a determining factor in 

 the development of the curricula. The forest schools simply did not 

 realize fully their opportunities. There is now a growing tendency 

 among the educators to correct this situation, but the majority of the 

 schools fall far short in their attempt because of the lack of physical 

 equipment and the type of instructor required to make the work at all 

 efficient. Although the majority of the schools are doing very good 

 work in some lines, many of them are very poorly equipped for carry- 

 ing out efficiently all of the specialised zvork they are advertising. 



If I may so far presume, I should like also to offer an observation 

 and a criticism along this line concerning the Forest Service. I think 

 that the Forest Service has shown a partial recognition of this state of 

 affairs which is illustrated, for example, in the personnel of its staff 

 at the Madison Laboratory. At any rate the staff at Madison shows — 

 since it is composed of a goodly number of engineers — that foresters 

 did not have the training needed for a large part of the work promul- 

 gated there. On the other hand, a little analysis and reflection will 



* It is true that numerous exceptions concerning admissions have been made 

 by the Society, yet the fact remains that there is among many of the members 

 a strong prejudice against persons not associated with some phase of the work 

 in silviculture and management. 



