564 Forestry Quarterly 



been three primary ideas. The first was, that forests exist for the 

 people, and not the other way around, as some apparently would 

 have it. The people, too, in his view, were not posterity alone, 

 but included the people of today, and from that classification the 

 members of the lumber industry were not excluded. 



Another thing he taught was that the economy of existing 

 forest measures, the future of forest land also in large measure 

 as well, was not mainly a matter of planting, thinning and other 

 silvicultural operations on a minute scale, but was bound up with 

 the methods and organization of the industry at large, and in 

 great measure depended on its prosperity and success. Under 

 financial pressure and low prices for lumber, he saw that neither 

 good economy nor protection are possible, while fine silvicultural 

 measures must be dropped out entirely. 



The third thing that Dr. Schenck made the subject of much 

 teaching was that conditions in the industry will be improved from 

 the inside, and cannot be greatly changed in any other way. The 

 idea of regulation from outside in advance of proved necessity 

 and of plans laid out for an owner without consideration of his 

 financial circumstances and business organization, were things 

 that filled him with disgust. 



To these effects ran the weight of Dr. Schenck's teaching. 

 Plenty of other men in the country hold much the same ideas. 

 The weight that Dr. Schenck gave them arose from the fact 

 that he was a trained and recognized forester, a German one at 

 that. 



Criticism and a negative position are easy. The Biltmore 

 Forest School was Dr. Schenck's contribution on the positive 

 side. Here his chief aim was to train men for the lumber in- 

 dustry. Biltmore in the old days was a school not mainly of the 

 class-room, but of the woods, and after it began its travels, the 

 same character prevailed. Whatever his classes may have gotten 

 in Europe, in this country they went where actual logging and 

 mill work were going on, and studied those processes face to 

 face ; and when they left the school, the majority of the men 

 found places in the industry. This, however unsatisfactory it 

 may have looked to the systematic educator, was effective work 

 nevertheless. Dr. Schenck brought his men in contact with 

 realities and showed them how to react upon them. The sons of 



