A\^eds in Forestry Education. 47 



under the same environments and inspirations for five years, as 

 has been done so successfully at Ann Arbor, should prepare men 

 as efficiently as can be done in the ix>st-graduate schools of to-day. 



The fact that all men from either four or six year courses have 

 been placed upon nearly the same basis upon entering practical 

 work has produced an attitude, a condition that it will be difficult 

 to change and yet which must be changed somewhat before the 

 problem of filling the gap between the practically untrained guard 

 and ranger of to-day and the technical assistant is solved. The 

 importance of this problem was brought out at the recent Con- 

 ference of Forest Schools in Washington. The solution sug- 

 gested there is the establishment of a series of well equipped 

 Ranger Schools giving from two to three years of intensely 

 practical work and fitting men for work in specific regions rather 

 than for the entire country. One or two such ranger schools have 

 been estabHshed in the west, and the New York State College of 

 Forestry, at Syracuse University will open such a school in the 

 fall of 191 2 on its working forest in the Adirondacks. 



The results of a similar system in Germany, that is, the Aca- 

 demy or University — which are of the same grade — for the train- 

 ing of the technical man, and the "forsterschule" for the lowest 

 grades have not been such as to assure us that the successful 

 carrying out of the same scheme here will give us men fitted for 

 all grades of work. A complaint heard often among foresters in 

 Germany is that the technical man in the higher grades has his 

 time so taken up with the routine work of administration that 

 little or no time is left for proper application of the right methods 

 of management, to say nothing of opportunity for trying out new 

 methods to meet changing conditions or advancing knowledge. 

 The men in the lower grades know so little of technical work that 

 they are unable to supervise more than the simplest operations 

 and, therefore, simple methods only, such as clear cutting and 

 planting, are used where other methods would probably give 

 better results. There exists a gap between the higher and lower 

 grades which is not now filled satisfactorily. There is every 

 reason to believe that a similar gap will exist in this country 

 between the higher and lower grades and largely for the same 

 reasons. 



It may be that the above problem could be solved by the govern- 

 ment, which will be the chief market for men from the forest 



