REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 347 
doubt that the establishment of a forest school would be of im- 
portance, because it would be likely to disseminate better views 
with regard to the management of woods.”—“ Are you prepared 
to state to the Committee what the present arrangements are at 
Cooper’s Hill with regard to instructions in forestry?” ‘The 
Secretary of State in Council selects every year a certain number 
of young men from among those who have qualified in an exami- 
nation held by the Civil Service Commissioners. For instance, 
last year he selected five, and this year he has advertised for 
eight. There is a competitive examination held, and from those 
who stand at the top of the list he selects those whom he considers 
best suited for the appointment. Generally he begins at the top 
and takes those standing at the top, provided there is nothing 
against them; if there is anything against one of them he can 
strike that one out and take one lower down.”—“ Until now those 
young men have been sent abroad for their actual forest instruc- 
tion. At first a certain number were sent to France, and a 
certain number to Germany, but latterly they have been all sent 
to the forest school at Nancy?” “ Yes.”—“ Is it proposed that 
they should still go abroad during any part of their instruction ?” 
“Yes; they enter the ordinary course at Cooper’s Hill in Sep- 
tember of each year. They go through the ordinary course, 
generally speaking, until Easter ; and then at Easter they drop 
certain subjects, such as mathematics and geometrical drawing, 
and we substitute for those subjects botany and instruction in the 
different branches of forestry. Then, at the end of the first 
twelve months, they drop most of the curriculum subjects, 
retaining only a few, as, for instance, surveying and physics ; and 
their time is principally employed in the second year in the study 
of botany and the different branches of forestry, entomology, and, 
we hope, in acquiring also some elementary knowledge of law ; 
but the arrangements for that have not yet been made, because 
we have not yet arrived at the second year. At the end of the 
first year the present arrangement is that the students are taken 
for a short trip to the Continent for about three weeks, to a par- 
ticular forest managed in such a way as will be most useful or 
most instructive to our Indian forest officers. They have to study 
the system of management in that particular district as closely as 
it is possible to do in the time. That is the autumn of the first 
year ; and then, in the second year, having completed their 
theoretical subjects, they would be taken for three or four months 
