108 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
apparent to Dr Brandis that it was absolutely necessary to 
ensure a regular supply of young officers who had undergone 
a thorough course of training in Forestry; and, after a vast 
amount of correspondence, the Government of India and the 
Secretary of State acquiesced in the proposals he urged on their 
attention. In 1866 two young German foresters were selected 
for appointment to the Department, Dr W. Schlich and Mr B. 
Ribbentrop—who, later on, became Dr Brandis’s successors as 
Inspectors-General (from 1882-1885, and 1885-1g01)—and in that 
same year the first competitive examination was held in London 
for probationers, who were to be trained, some in Germany and 
others in France, for two and a half years before joining the 
Department as junior officers. This course of training lasted 
down to 1875 in Germany, and down to 1886 in France (at 
the Nancy Forest School); but, beginning in 1885, for the last 
twenty years the technical education for probationers has, for 
the most part, been given at the Indian Engineering College, 
Coopers Hill, Surrey, by Dr Schlich, assisted since 1888 by 
Mr Fisher,—this collegiate course being amplified by tours in 
French and German forests, and followed by a six months’ 
residence in a North German forest, giving better opportunities 
than are available anywhere in Britain for seeing practical work 
carried out methodically on a large scale. 
For exactly twenty years, therefore, Coopers Hill has been 
the place of instruction for the probationers for the Indian Forest 
Service. The main reason of its ever having been selected for 
this purpose was that, owing to the fall in the exchange value 
of the rupee or silver currency, and the consequent shrinkage 
in Public Works over twenty years ago, Coopers Hill was too 
expensive to be maintained by the Government of India only 
for a decreased number of Civil Engineer probationers ; and the 
new rules introduced in 1885, as regarded probationers for the 
Indian Forest Service, relieved the financial position of Coopers 
Hill. 
With the changing circumstances brought by time, however, 
the whole question of maintaining Coopers Hill cropped up 
again,—with the well-known issue that in the spring of 1904 
the Secretary of State for India decided to close it after July 
1905. Ample provision exists in various parts of the United 
Kingdom for the training of Civil Engineers; but the question 
of dealing with the Forest probationers had to be also considered, 
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