FORESTRY EDUCATION : ITS IMPORTANCE AND REQUIREMENTS. 39 



of the woods in your charge may some day depend on your 

 acting promptly on the lines you were taught as a student. 



To him who has followed the elements of the science and then 

 gone out into the woods to practise it I would say, forsake the 

 woods for a brief spell, come back to the classroom, and the 

 fuller outlook and wider sphere which will open out to you on 

 your return will well repay you for your perhaps uncongenial 

 labour at the desk. You will never regret the step. 



And now I must briefly glance at our preparations here in the 

 University to receive those of you who come back to us from 

 the woods, to those who commence within these walls that 

 apprenticeship to the life of a forester which I for one, believe 

 they will never regret. 



As many of you know the University grants a degree of B.Sc. 

 in Forestry, the only University in Scotland or England to do so. 

 That is our patent to you who come to us, the hall-mark which 

 will warrant each man we send out as qualified to undertake the 

 work of a forester. But we hope to equally hall-mark those 

 who return to us for the higher course of training, and yet who 

 will be unable to put in the three years of residence at the 

 University which the degree requires. Those others who return 

 I trust, will be equally marked by us on leaving when they have 

 satisfied us that they are fully qualified. This is what I hope 

 we propose to do. Let us now glance at our means of doing it. 



To teach the science of forestry efficiently requires, as we have 

 seen, three essentials : 



1. A Sufficiently Strong Staff. 



2. Good Museums. 



3. A Forest Garden and Demonstration Forest. 



I. The Staff. We have seen the strength of the staff which 

 the European forestry colleges consider necessary. The staff for 

 forestry tuition at Edinburgh can compare in all save one 

 respect with that of any other university or college in the 

 world. The point, however, at which it is at its weakest is one 

 of the places where it should be strongest. I speak of the 

 strength of the staff responsible for the forestry portion of the 

 education, the most important part to the students. 



So far as our first course in forestry is concerned we are all 

 right. We could even manage the theoretical portion of the 

 higher course, which it is proposed shall be given in the winter 

 session, although it would involve the burden of delivering two 



