American Forestry 



VOL XVII 



JANUARY, 1911 



No. 1 



LESSONS FROM THE FOREST 



By EDWIN R. JACKSON. 



United States Forest Service. 



(This was delivered in substantially its present form as an address before the Iowa State 

 Teachers' Association at Des Moines, November 3, 1910.) 



I HAVE desired, in preparing this paper, to help a little in solving the 

 problem of how to make the everyday work of the school interesting 

 and profitable. If I fail to do so, it will be because of lack of ability to 

 make you see from my viewpoint; not because my heart isn't right. I would 

 like to begin immediately to point out some of the interesting things which 

 the forest offers in the way of ''teacher's helps," but in order to make myself 

 and my purpose clear, I find that a few words of explanation are necessary, so 

 at the risk of being pedantic, I must take time for a short introduction. 



You have all doubtless been reminded many times of that rather vague but 

 very comprehensive statement of Herbert Spencer, that "Education is the 

 {reparation for complete living." We frequently misquote this, or at least 

 misinterpret it, and tell our pupils that they must go to school in order to 

 "prepare for life!" How many school boys do you suppose have heard this 

 statement from parent or teacher and secretly resolved to cut out the prepara- 

 tion and get into the real thing us soon as possible? We make the school 

 appear not as a very necessary ]>art of life, but as a sort of purgatory which 

 precedes that blessed state. Do you blame the boy for wanting to shorten 

 his stay there? Then we have the audacity to tell him that school days are 

 the happiest days of life. What hypocrites our children must sometimes 

 think us! Let us first get on solid ground and teach that school work is as 

 much the business of life as selling goods, and that education is acquainting 

 ourselves with the field of our labors, quite as much as the first trip of the 

 new salesman over his route or the apprenticeship of the tradesman. 



Assuming this to be true, we must at once conclude that familiarity with 

 one's environment is essential to success in life. By success, I mean not so 

 much ability to outstrip one's competitors as the ability to serve one's fellow- 

 men ; to meet each situation which arises, with confidence ; and to live happily 

 and in content. 



I observed a curious incident recently in one of the magnificent hotels of 

 an eastern city. Two men entered the building at about the same time. One 

 was tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. His tanned features and 

 calloused hands showed that he was accustomed to hard work, and his muscles 



