668 . JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



argument is a plea against higher education and will not stand the test 

 of facts. The mental training received in college, independent of the 

 special lines, increases mental ability, unselfishness, or humanity, effi- 

 ciency, and notably increases adaptability and initiative. 



The special training in forestry, which is much broader than the ap- 

 parent conception of this training held by some who should know better, 

 adds tremendously to the man's efficiency, not merely along silvicul- 

 tural lines, but in all lines, by improving his powers of concentration 

 and memory and his grasp of underlying principles of forestry, includ- 

 ing such practical subjects as improvements, grazing, and accounting. 

 A college training is also an excellent school for the suppression of such 

 traits as gullibility, self-conceit, and disloyalty, though to attain mental 

 hardiness requires usually some outside experience, combined with 

 good heredity and common sense. 



Finally, the technical training gives a man practical idealism. Much 

 has been said about impractical ideas inculcated in technical courses. 

 Perhaps it is temerity for the writer to say that he has failed to discover 

 them. The basic practical nature of the training given at these schools 

 has stood the test of actual field experience. School training that seeks 

 only to fit a man for his routine administrative duties is a waste of time. 

 The vital training is in fundamentals, technical methods, and broad 

 economic principles and relationships, which give vision, and through 

 the creation of ideals lay the foundation for leadership. 



The process by which the proportion of technical men in the Forest 

 Service might be reduced is clear — that is : 



1. Resignation after several years of service. 



2. Resignation after brief service. 



3. Failure to secure the man at all. 



If there are influences at work which have changed the outlook for 

 men in the Forest Service and made such employment less desirable 

 than outside opportunities, all three of these factors tend to operate at 

 the same time and the results may well be serious. 



Men just entering the Service are profoundly afifected by the qualities 

 of leadership of their immediate superiors. When these superiors lack 

 executive ability, as is evidenced by failure to get the best work out of 

 the younger man and give him the greatest possible encouragement and 

 best experience, it tends to drive him out of the Service. It is an unfor- 

 tunate fact that a few supervisors, lacking technical training, have at 

 times apparently taken a certain pleasure in assigning young technical 

 men to unfamiliar tasks, without direction, in order to demonstrate 

 their worthlessness and the futility of technical training. Supervisors 



