Standardisation of Instruction. 351 



morphological characteristics as means of recognition. The 

 characteristics which touch the life history of the species are 

 classed under Silvics or Biological Dendrology (Forest Ecolog}0. 



Where the course in descriptive dendrology is taught a year 

 or so ahead of Silvics or Biological Dendrology, it should perhaps 

 include the general geographic distribution of the species so that 

 the student will know not only what the trees look like, but where 

 they occur. 



The chief difficulty in giving instruction in descriptive den- 

 drology is that so much material is ordinarily loaded on the 

 student that he is unable to digest it, and when the course is 

 jfinished he does not have an actual working knowledge for the 

 recognition of species but an accumulation of facts which are to 

 him largely a matter of memory. This has been proved repeatedly 

 in the Civil Service examinations for government service where 

 graduates of some of our best forest schools have shown by their 

 answers to specific questions that they were drawing on their 

 memory of text book and note book information, rather than 

 possess actual knowledge. It is believed that the defect in the 

 training in Dendrology in our forest schools has been due 

 primarily to the efifort on the part of the instructor to cover too 

 much ground. It is a physical impossibility in the time usually 

 devoted to this course, for the ordinary student to acquire a real 

 working knowledge of all the species of the United States. It is 

 therefore, believed that this course should cover only such ground 

 as may be very thoroughly taught in the time at the disposal of 

 the instructor. 



The course should include, first, a very thorough and complete 

 training in recognizing species which are found occurring locally, 

 either naturally or by introduction. There is no reason why 

 every student should not acquire a thorough knowledge of those 

 species which he can actually see growing. Every forest school 

 is so located that in the vicinity there may be found not only the 

 species which occur naturally in the region, but a great many 

 others planted for ornamental purposes. It is exceedingly de- 

 sirable that schools should develop arboreta so that ultimately 

 there may be found growing all the species which are climatically 

 adapted to the locality. 



The greatest difficulty is found in giving adequate training in 



