58 



NATURE 



[April 8, 1920 



There is no reason why a standard of pro- 

 fessional training at least equal to that required 

 by other professions, such as medicine and en- 

 gineering-, should not be required by the Army, 

 and the only imaginable obstacle to this reform 

 are the protests of old Regular officers, who 

 think that the system which produced them must 

 be the best possible. That particular obstacle 

 has been overcome more than once in the history 

 of the British Army, and it should not deter Mr. 

 Churchill if he will devote to this reform some of 

 the energy which he expends so generously on 

 more forlorn objects. 



To pass from destructive to constructive 

 criticism, we would urge that the standard of 

 education represented by three years' study at 

 a University should, as a general rule, be 

 demanded of all Army officers ; in other words, 

 that the raw material for the commissioned ranks 

 should be University graduates rather than public- 

 school boys. The military colleges at Woolwich 

 and Sandhurst should no longer be used as 

 seminaries for the elementary education of 

 adolescents. 



A great economy of public money would be 

 effected by this simple reform. According to the 

 Estimates for 1919-20, Sandhurst for 700 cadets 

 will cost a gross amount of 195,350/., being 

 279/. 15. 5^. per cadet per annum, while Wool- 

 wich for 280 cadets will cost 86,850!., or 

 310L 35. 7d. per cadet per annum. It is "pure" 

 education which these young men chiefly require ; 

 they should obtain it in the Universities, which 

 can offer a wide variety of curriculum and abun- 

 dant facilities for social intercourse with all types 

 of student. The University contingents of the 

 Officers Training Corps are admirably adapted for 

 providing elementary military training, which 

 could be supplemented within the Army before 

 and after the student takes his commission. Inci- 

 dentally, the Army would be able to select for its 

 commissioned ranks mature men possessing a 

 livelier sense of vocation than can be expected 

 from schoolboys. 



If the quality of the raw material were improved 

 in the way suggested, there should be no ground 

 for nervousness as to the finished product. 

 Methods could easily be devised of advancing and 

 specialising the military training of these young 

 University graduates. In time a corps d'dlite 

 would be formed able to study the art of war 

 in all its aspects and to apply new scientific ideas 

 and discoveries to national defence. 

 NO. 2632, VOL. 105] 



Woods and Water Supply. 



Forests, Woods, and Trees in Relation to 

 Hygiene. By Prof. Augustine Henry. (The 

 Chadwick Library.) Pp. xii + 314. (London: 

 Constable and Co., Ltd., 1919.) Price 185. net. 



PROF. HENRY writes of forests, woods, and 

 trees with an enthusiastic appreciation of 

 the beneficent part they play in the economy of 

 Nature and in the service of man. He has devoted 

 great energy to the study of his subject, and 

 collected data of much value which will prove 

 very useful to those engaged in projects of 

 afforestation in this country. The importance of 

 the subject is, we believe, fully realised by the 

 Government, and Prof. Henry adduces so many 

 instances of local authorities which have begun 

 to move in the matter that we may hope to see 

 the restoration of the woods on waste lands 

 making steady progress year by year. 



The book before us is an amplification of the 

 Chadwick Lectures delivered by Prof. Henry at 

 the Royal Society of Arts in 1917, and the author 

 no doubt looks upon it in large measure as propa- 

 ganda in the cause of tree-planting on a national 

 scale. The first three chapters, however, deal 

 with matters of profound scientific importance — 

 the influence of forests on climate, the sanitary 

 influence of forests, and forests as sites for sana- 

 toria. These are difficult matters, as Prof. Henry 

 fully realises, and some of them have agitated 

 students of physical geography for generations. 

 The difficulty of the question of the influence of 

 forests on climate arises in great measure from 

 the fact that climate has a great influence on 

 forests, so that in wooded areas the interplay of 

 cause and effect becomes extremely complicated. 



Prof. Henry has read up the subject widely, but 

 the nature of his book makes it impossible for 

 him to focus the results sharply enough. He 

 abundantly justifies the thesis that an increase 

 of forest growth is of national importance for 

 improving the hygiene and the economic condition 

 of this country; but he scarcely attempts a scien- 

 tific demonstration of the mechanism by which 

 the beneficial effects are produced. He does, 

 indeed, direct the attention of his readers to many 

 recent investigations which it is most useful to 

 have brought together, and for this guidance the 

 student who wishes to go farther should be 

 sincerely grateful. 



We cannot, however, accept the results of some 

 of the series of observations referred to without 

 a more critical discussion of the methods employed 

 and the data recorded in different pa-', of the 

 world. In particular we agree with Prof. Henry 

 in his opinion that the effect of afforestation in 



