OPPORTUNITIES FOE FORESTERS 85 



schools, requiring a college degree for entrance. More give undergraduate 

 work. The curriculum in these schools is laid out closely after one pattern 

 (silviculture, mensuration, management, protection, etc., tied more closely to 

 botany than to any other related science) and the majority of teachers are 

 very recent graduates, giving out, without great added resources derived from 

 experience and independent study, what was given to them. Precedent and 

 the National Forest work together have given tone to the thing. If newness 

 is one feature of forestry training in our colleges and universities, com- 

 parative similarity of aim and method is another. One feature is undoubtedly 

 connected with the other, and a main point of the present discussion is to see 

 if we do not need to diversify our work and broaden our field. 



SOME REFLECTIONS 



The following reflections may be considered as more or less sound : 



First The natural relation of forestry to agriculture is evident, and the 

 farmer is usually situated so as to utilize knowledge of forestry principles. 

 Some instruction in forestry ought certainly to be given in every agricultural 

 college, and many efficient men will likely gain entrance to the forestry pro- 

 fession through this means. 



Second Because of the interest and educational value forestry science 

 has, and because the forestry cause needs the co-operation of influential men, 

 the subject may win some place in general collegiate, as in popular, education. 



Third But training which professes to equip a man for a calling is a 

 different thing. The number of schools and size of classes will of necessity 

 be limited by the opportunities for satisfactory employment which graduates 

 can find, and training must be carefully adapted to the service it is to be put to. 

 This seems axiomatic to be sure, but may not be as simple as it looks. At 

 any rate, if changes are needed or promising fields as yet unoccupied can be 

 found, recognition of this is important not merely for the schools themselves 

 whose field may be enlarged, but to the forestry cause in general, for nothing 

 surely can promote it more effectively than to have its interests bound up 

 with the present fortunes of a body of active, intelligent men. 



Answer to the questions whether schools of foresty are giving the best 

 sort of training to their students and whether they are fulfilling to the utmost 

 the purpose they might serve will largely turn on our conception of what 

 forestry is and of the kind of man who may be rightly denominated a forester. 

 Ideas are not settled and uniform on those points. 



"The Forester" to the United States Government and the forestry officials 

 of some of our states represent the term to many. These men have big 

 executive duties imposed upon them and by nature of their offices must be 

 somewhat in the line of diplomats and politicians as well. Large capacities 

 are essential for these men and the broadest training is none to good. The 

 profession is being stretched to fill these places creditably today, but it doesn't 

 require many men to fill them. 



Many think of the forester as an observer, inquiring into the facts, 

 botanical, entomological, silvical, and others that relate to forest life and 

 growth and putting results out in literature perhaps, to be utilized or to fall 



