48 Canadian Forestry Journal 



sent direct the cutting of the Canadian forests. But the world 

 has made progress in educational matters in the last fifty years, 

 and to-day we have, established and maintained by the State, 

 military and naval academies, schools of law and medicine, 

 of mining, engineering, agriculture, and other professional and 

 technical schools too numerous to mention. 



With her vast interest in forests and forest products there 

 can, I think, be little doubt but that the time has fully come 

 for the establishment of a Canadian School of Forestry for the 

 training of her coming forest service. 



A Practical Forestry Training. 



Time does not permit me to discuss in any detail the char- 

 acter of the instruction which should be given at such a school. 

 In very brief, I would say that a broad elementary training in 

 the so-called natural sciences and mathematics is a most necessary 

 preparation for the forester's professional training. That the 

 professional training must be as practical as possible goes of 

 course without saying. To this end all theoretical instruction 

 must be supplemented by practical investigation and applica- 

 tion in the woods. I would go farther and recommend that 

 on the completion of their school work — theoretical and prac- 

 tical — all students who have not previously had a practical 

 training in the lumbering business be required to associate 

 themselves with a lumber firm for a year for the purpose of 

 studying and practically assisting in the various operations 

 from the felling of the tree to the grading of the lumber for the 

 market. This training will prove of value to students not alone 

 in the matter of information gained, but will serve the useful 

 purpose of bringing the foresters and the lumbermen in touch 

 personally and professionally. 



Assistance for Private Owners. 



The educational side of a national forest policy would be 

 incomplete without provision for the dissemination of a know- 

 ledge of improved methods of woodland management for the 

 benefit of the private owners, who control in the aggregate many 

 million acres of woodlands, which scattered as they are through- 

 out the agricultural sections, are acre for acre the most valuable 

 of Canadian forest lands. The Ontario Department of Agri- 

 culture and the Dominion Forestry Branch have already made 

 an excellent beginning in this great educational work. 



Such in brief is a ghmpse of Canada's responsibihty, oppor- 

 tunity, and duty. As we accept our responsibilities and as we 

 do our duty according to our opportunity will we be judged by 

 future generations as having been worthy or unworthy custo- 

 dians of an almost unbounded natural resource. 



