170 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
There are in the first place proprietors, land agents, factors, 
and others of similar position, to whom a knowledge of forestry 
will be of immense assistance in the performance of their duties, 
but who will not look to forestry as in any sense a profession, and 
with them may be classed those who propose to enter the forest 
service of the State in its higher grades in India and the colonies, 
and who will therefore make forestry a profession. To all these 
men an university education is essential. And then there is the 
practical forester—the man who, unless in exceptional circum- 
stances, cannot look to the advantages of an university education, 
yet whose training is a matter of national importance, as upon 
his skill depends the proper management of our woods and plan- 
tations. The subjects of study involved in the education of both 
sets of men are the same, but under existing conditions combination 
of their teaching is an impossibility. 
The practical point that comes up then for settlement is, how 
can we in Edinburgh provide for the teaching of all these men ? 
In the university here, a student can already obtain instruc- 
tion in some degree in all the sciences underlying forestry 
practice, and the institution of lectures on forestry has furnished 
opportunity for his learning their application to the practical 
management of woods. But a fortuitous attendance on science 
classes, without prospect of the application of a university test and 
the award of a mark of university training, does not meet the 
requirements of our time. What we desire is that forestry shall be 
recognised in the university as an applied science, on equal footing 
with engineering and agriculture, and that so important a subject 
shall not be left to the care of an unpaid lecturer—we could not 
always hope to have so unselfish a devotee as Dr Somerville to 
occupy the position—but that, like the other subjects I have men- 
tioned, it shall be entrusted to a professor occupying a distinct 
Chair of Forestry. As you are aware, this matter has been brought 
before the Universities Commissioners. How far they will be 
disposed to recognise the claims of forestry, and assent to its intro- 
duction in a curriculum of study, we are not able yet to say; but 
of this we may be assured, that the Universities Commissioners 
will not be prepared to provide all the money for the foundation 
of a chair of forestry. To this end, therefore, our energies must 
be directed. Already steps have been taken, not only by this 
Society but also by the Highland and Agricultural Society, with 
the purpose of raising a sum for the endowment of a chair, I see 
