SOME NEEDS IN FORESTRY EDUCATION. 

 By Hugh P. Baker, Ph. D. 



That our present ideas of what constitutes the right education 

 of the forester in this country are in a very unsettled state and 

 that there is a wide divergence of opinion as to whether our 

 courses in forestry should be strengthened along lines of natural 

 science or engineering, was brought out strongly by the papers and 

 discussions presented at the recent reunion of the Yale Forest 

 School at New Haven and the Conference of Forest Schools in 

 Washington. 



The freest and broadest discussion of this most important 

 problem confronting the profession of forestry in this country 

 should be had, and that by both practitioner and teacher, before 

 any sort of understanding can be reached as to reasonable stand- 

 ards. In a way, the profession is passing through a very critical 

 stage because Mr. Pinchot's statement that much of the forestry 

 practiced at present in this country is not in the woods, is all too 

 true. As in few other lines of work the practitioner and educator 

 should get together and remain together until real forestr}' is well 

 under way, not only in the comparatively small forest areas be- 

 longing to the government and the states but over extensive pri- 

 vate holdings from which much of the wood used in the country 

 will be cut during the next half-century. 



If the development of forestry education in Germany is at all 

 indicative of what we are to pass through in this country we are 

 just at the beginning of the struggle to evolve the ideal forestry 

 school. In 1910, Bavaria concluded finally that the University 

 was the best and most economical place to train foresters, and 

 closed the Forest Academy at Aschafifenburg. Prussia, on the 

 contrary, believes in the strength of the small Academy where 

 stress may be laid upon practice and is developing her Academy at 

 Eberswalde. They are yet far from agreement as to either the 

 school or curriculum. Whatever our present progress toward 

 standardization of courses in forestry it seems probable that for 

 some time our schools will be controlled largely by the personality 

 of the men in charge and local or sectional needs. Without doubt 



