THE PORKST service; AND ITS MEN ^ 667 



and would rather depend with certainty on the monthly pay check than 

 face the terrors of economic competition. 



But the most critical period comes at the start, after about two or 

 three years at most of service at initial low salaries and on tasks which 

 are apt of necessity to be largely routine. The ambitious man, if he 

 can see his zvay through, will stick like grim death ; but once convinced 

 in his own mind that there is no future in the Forest Service compared 

 with prospects outside — whether or not this impression is justified — he 

 quits before he has undertaken family ties and incurred financial obli- 

 gations. Failure to hold such men in the Service — and this is said ad- 

 visedly, based on impartial knowledge of many men — is hardly ever to 

 be attributed to lack of perseverance, endurance, or willingness to tackle 

 whatever job is given them, or disgust with environment. With hardly 

 a single exception these men have been equal to the situation. They 

 have quit because they were not convinced by their superiors that the 

 game was worth the candle, and the fault lies largely with the organi- 

 zation. 



Proper leadership is the key to success in any organization — how 

 much more so in one of this character. I have tried to set forth in 

 Part I of this article the qualities demanded for such leadership, and 

 in Part II the degree to which this standard has been attained by the 

 technical graduates of one forest school, which is undoubtedly true in 

 general for all forest schools giving a thorough course of training. On 

 the basis of this record of facts, it must appear that technical forest 

 education, instead of specializing men to the point of inefficiency, has 

 the opposite effect, of fitting them for general administration to a re- 

 markable degree. That there has been no deliberate discrimination by 

 which technical men have been advanced merely because of that fact, 

 but that men of all calibers have, by and large, risen solely on the basis 

 of their ability, is a fact too well known to be challenged for an instant. 

 It is a matter of profound indifference to the superior officer who is 

 looking for men to carry responsibility, where they come from or what 

 their previous training has been, provided they demonstrate their ability 

 by their performance since entering the Service and have come through 

 as far as they have been tested. 



I fail to understand how such a <|uestion could ever be raised unless 

 there is reallv a fundamental misconception of the function of educa- 

 tion in general and technical forest training in particular. It is almost 

 like arguing that any given ranger, supervisor, or district forester is 

 more efficient and cai>al)le ivithout a special training than the sanie man 

 would become if he added that training to his other qualities. Such an 



