TRAINING OF PROBATIONERS FOR FOREST SERVICE OF INDIA. 191 



26. The Selection and Training of Probationers for 

 the Imperial Forest Service of India.^ 



By J. NiSBET, D.Cl'x., formerly Conservator of Forests, Burma. 



I am of opinion that witli the forestry, mainly Continental 

 or its direct offshoot, now taught at several universities and 

 at most agricultural colleges, the Forest Department could 

 satisfactorily and quite as easily be recruited with fairly well- 

 equipped students of estate (including woodland) management, 

 as is found to be the case for the recruitment of the Public 

 Works, the Educational, and other scientific departments, under 

 a system of selection from among properly qualified candidates. 

 But at the same time I think it is very desirable, from more 

 than one point of view, that Indian Forest probationers should 

 be selected by a competitive examination held by the Civil 

 Service Commissioners in Forestry and the cognate sciences, 

 and then be given one year's specialised training in Indian 

 Forestry, Indian vernacular languages, and one branch of 

 science at Oxford and Cambridge, combined with extensive 

 tours in such European forests as may be specially instructive 

 from the Indian point of view. 



Such an examination should supply not only the Indian 

 Forest requirements, but also all the growing Colonial needs. 

 The Malay States, Ceylon, Cape Colony, Natal, Nigeria, the 

 Gold Coast, the East African Protectorate, Egypt, and Cyprus 

 now all require forest officers ; and it can only be a question 

 of time before Canada, Australia, and New Zealand must also 

 introduce some rational system of Forest Conservation based 

 on our Indian experience, and will then require a large number 

 of men. And all Colonial systems of forestry must be based 

 on the Indian system, not on European models. 



Such a test would, I feel convinced, secure the best men, 

 who are likely to be attracted by the pay and pension offered 

 by the Indian Forest Service, after having gone through a 

 university or other collegiate course with a view to adopting 

 the profession of land agency or estate management. And 

 just as open competitive examinations are now held annually 

 in July for the Home, Indian, and Colonial Civil Services, so, 

 too, should a competitive examination in forestry apply simul- 



1 Extracted from an article in The Calcutta Review, 



