TIIK SCHOOL-TRAINED FORESTER 851 



fifty years in all lines of industry is full of illustrations. The modern 

 world in all phases of its housekeeping depends for its direction, and 

 especially depends for its progress, on the school-bred man — ground 

 in the fundamentals and tutored in his particular field, able to under- 

 stand the book and interested, through the stimulus which comes from 

 knowledge, to read the book and to find out what others have done and 

 are doing, and interested in trying new ways. 



But the man without college training sees his sui)erior, often less 

 gifted but better schooled, make mistakes, sometimes fail entirely, or 

 sees him dependent on the non-schooled man, reaping other men's glory 

 and pay. This goes on right along and will do so for all time. Quite 

 naturally the matter comes to the surface ; now and then some striking 

 cases get into the papers and magazines. Some excellent practitioners 

 in surgery and medicine, in law and in engineering (notably in archi- 

 tecture), have been men without a college course, or with a partial 

 course, or course in general studies but not in their specialty. In busi- 

 ness this is even more true ; fortunes have been gathered by men with- 

 out any schooling, and when Joe Lester can corner the wheat, it is put 

 on the big gong that he never had gone to college. When Joe fails 

 and nearly ruins his father, too, there is nothing further said about the 

 matter. 



That a man may be a great lawyer, surgeon, or architect without the 

 school training is certainly true — experience proves it ; but it also proves 

 that out of a hundred men trying surgery or law or architecture, even 

 after all the schooling of a regular course, only a few prove to be of the 

 "select" and make their way to the top. 



'i'he genius soars, regardless of conditions, and in our age of free 

 libraries, illustrated works, easy travel, abundant opportunity to hear 

 and to see and to learn from object-lessons of every kind, the genius 

 finds soaring easy and rapid. But genius is rare ; the great body is just 

 average, and the student but little better. "About one man in ten has 

 real head," was the answer of a man of experience, and he is probably 

 not far wrong. If we waited for men of genius to attend the sick and 

 injured, fill our teeth, build our railways, and work in our factories, 

 mines, and forests, these several necessary branches would remain 

 unmanned, and genius could go on dreaming in the vegetable garden of 

 a very primitive world. 



But for the average, for that army of men today necessary to do the 

 l)rain work, the office and laboratory, the study and design work of 

 civilized nations, we need .schools; and Mr. Kneipp states this very 

 well in saying: "Obviously they have certain decided advantages over 



