PROBLEMS IN FORESTRY EDUCATION 649 



prerequisites and the special foundation is quite foreign to any other 

 department, but fits in beautifully with the general make-up of the for- 

 estry curriculum. What has been shown here with reference to wood 

 preservation can be shown with equal force to be true of any of the 

 work in lumbering, logging engineering, and forest products, providing 

 this work is to be placed on a broad scientific basis. 



If now, on the other hand, we examine the ability of the forest 

 schools, from the standpoint of equipment, either in the way of appa- 

 ratus or instructors, to handle the advanced technical work, how many 

 are fitted to prepare the ordinary student to become, after a short 

 period of apprenticeship, a moving spirit for improvement in these in- 

 dustries? There may have been some excuse for this state of affairs 

 along some lines of the work, because men with proper training to 

 teach the subjects were not available. Nevertheless, it remains a fact 

 that a number of highly specialized technical lines in forestry are not 

 being developed to a desired and proper extent. This, together with 

 the failure of the Porest Service to develop or, when it begins to de- 

 velop, to hold men who should stand at the head of these professions 

 in the land, undoubtedly is one of the reasons why the profession has 

 not as yet gained the standing in the scientific and technical worlds that 

 it should have gained. And we must recognize as a fact that it has not. 

 Some of the most promising technical men the Service has had were 

 easily induced to enter the employ of commercial organizations, where 

 their scientific attitude of mind soon gave way to the commercial atti- 

 tude. As a result their value to the profession materially diminished. 



If we grant that it is proper for the forest schools to thoroughly de- 

 velop the so-called "allied fields" of forestry, then we must also grant 

 that there is no danger of overcrowding the profession. This has been 

 most forcibly illustrated by the difficulty of getting men properly 

 equipped to handle the work in timber inspection and kiln-drying in 

 connection with the country's war needs along these lines. It is the 

 first time that any attempt was made to apply on an extensive scale 

 scientifically efficient methods of handling this work. Properly trained 

 men were very scarce indeed, and at least until very recently much of 

 this even was handled in the field by rule of thumb and guesswork 

 methods, with practically no fundamental knowledge of the principles 

 involved. It was only through the efforts of the products branch of 

 the Service that any headway was made at all. The country over, these 

 lines offer an opportunity for a large force of men. They are, more- 

 over, only two of the many lines of work tying in with the forestry 

 curriculum that are being handled in a makeshift fashion throughout 



