764 .lOURNAL OF KORESTKY 



we who had the interests of the Bureau at heart took, I am afraid, a 

 sardonic pleasure in the surprise and chagrin of those who had hoped 

 to absorb it; and we feel that we are justified in the hope that it marks 

 a permanent and real victory for the stability and expansion of the 

 Bureau's policies for forest conservation in the Philippines. The fight 

 most certainly is not over. There will be renewed attacks, new dan- 

 gers ; but at best some permanent progress has been made, and we have 

 learned that the surest way to defend ourselves, in the Philippines as 

 elsewhere, lies in taking the people into our full confidence — in making 

 it possible for them to understand what we are trying to do and why, 

 what forest conservation means to them and their children, and what 

 would be the certain result of forest neglect. 



But the changed sentiment of the legislature was not shown only in 

 the report referred to above, important as that was in itself. Acting 

 in accordance with its recommendations, the Forest School was sepa- 

 rated from all connection w-ith the College of Agriculture, and estab- 

 lished as an independent school in the University of the Philippines, 

 with the Director of Forestry as ex officio dean. The importance of 

 this step can hardly be overestimated, as it insures without question 

 our ability to shape the training and attitude of the future personnel of 

 the Bureau. Theoretically, the school is maintained principally to fur- 

 nish the Bureau with needed Filipino personnel. In practice this is 

 its only function, for the Filipino student body is composed wholly of 

 "pensionados" appointed by the Bureau, and whom the Bureau is 

 under contract to employ when they graduate. Moreover, these grad- 

 uates form the only source from which the ranger force can be re- 

 cruited. Under such conditions it is obviously no more than just that 

 the Bureau should have the control for their education, and of the atti- 

 tude towards forest conservation and towards the Bureau which they 

 receive during their studies. 



Also, in spite of the necessity for rigid economy, the assembly passed, 

 practically if not quite unanimously, a bill increasing the work and 

 personnel of the Bureau ; and this measure was made even more large 

 in the Commission, and is now a part of the appropriation bill for 1916. 

 Other special appropriations were also passed, first in the assembly and 

 later approved in the Commission. These included an amount for 

 completing a new central building for the Forest School and a sum for 

 an entire new set of dormitories for the students. Notable also was 

 the appropriation of ten thousand pesos to enable the Bureau to under- 

 take the first reforestation project in the Philippines on more than a 

 small or experimental scale. This work has now been started in the 



