THE SCHOOL-TRAINED EORESTER 859 



Practically all the things the old regime failed to do, the Service does. 

 Today there is real administration and record ; today there are maps 

 and proper reports, and there are men to see that the work is done. 

 Today there is real improvement in the way of trails, road, and phone 

 lines ; today there is real fire protection and even efforts at protection 

 against insects and fungi ; today the stnmpage is not set at 50 cents 

 anywhere, to the disgust of all intelligent woods people, but a man pays 

 for timber approximately its fair value ; today a mine in the Black 

 Hills is not left to fill with water because the red tape is too long. This 

 story might be extended into a volume, but there is no cause in this 

 connection. Today the work commends itself and Congress appropri- 

 ates millions for it. Today the Service has the respect and the sup- 

 ix)rt of most of the good people of the West. 



The school-bred forester has l)een the engineer and architect and 

 has made work for many men laying pipe and carrying brick. The 

 average student, fresh from college, especially the poorer one or the 

 fellow who gets promotions too fast, believes that the school is rather 

 so-so ; that his failure is due to poor schooling or his promotions due 

 to his own si)ecial capacity, and if only that school had added "some 

 real stufif," blasting or fitting of cross-cut saws, for instance, what a 

 course it might give. 'Hiat he would be nowhere in particular without 

 his schooling does not occur to him until years later. It is human. 

 And this same human feeling is coming into a part of the Forest 'Serv- 

 ice today. That an unschooled crowd of today can and will never do 

 anything with the National Forests, any more than the old crew did. 

 all this never occurs to them; nor does it occur to these men that ii 

 was the school-bred forester who made the National Forest Service 

 what it is. That this mistaken human feeling should take possession 

 also of some of the school-bred men is natural ; they get impatient at 

 the young, blundering recruit and prefer the old sheepherder who has 

 had ten or more years' of experience in a particular simple job. That 

 the Service should fill up with unschooled people is probably true ; the 

 development of large affairs goes by waves, and the crest never stays 

 in one i)lace long. But Kirkland is certainly right when he warns that 

 this carries the danger of drifting into politics, which, in case of any 

 b'orest Service much more than other lines of work, will spell disinte- 

 gration by dry rot. 



'i'^o some of our friends it does not seem to occur that the very estab- 

 lishment of the National Forests awaited the school-bred forester, 

 whose argument, based on large European accomplishments in for- 

 tstry. on forestry teaching and literature, was the first convincing argu- 



