406 India. 



France and Germany. At the end of 1875 the pro- 

 fessional education was entirely transferred to Nancy. 

 The present force of Conservators is composed largely 

 of these men. For some reason, the training of men in 

 Germany and France became unpopular, and this 

 objection finally led, in 1884, to the establishment of 

 a chair of forestry at Cooper's Hill College for En- 

 gineering in England. At first, the course of study ex- 

 tended over 26 months, during 22 of which the candi- 

 dates prosecuted their studies at the college; the 

 remaining four months being spent under suitable 

 supervision in selected British and Continental forests. 



In 1905, this department was transferred to Oxford 

 University and the course extended to three years, 

 one year to be spent in continental forests. At 

 present this time may, however, be reduced to two 

 years and the vacations in continental forests, This 

 is a government affair, and probationers receive 

 stipends from the government. 



Mr. Brandis as early as 1869 saw also the necessity 

 of providing the means of giving the natives of India 

 some sort of technical education in forestry. The 

 first step in this direction was to place natives, 

 selected ones, under one or two officers of the Imperial 

 Service who were deemed fit to instruct them, and 

 in this way a few good men were turned out. An- 

 other experiment, after the German pattern, was made 

 by apprenticing likely young men under some forester 

 for a year or two and then sending them to an engi- 

 neering school for theoretical instruction. This was 

 also a failure. After much hard work, the Indian 

 forest school at Dehra Dun was established in 1878, 



