REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE SCOPE AND CHAR- 

 ACTER OF TRAINING FOR SPECIALISTS IN FOREST 

 PRODUCTS. 1 



A few words as to the origin of this committee may perhaps be helpful as 

 an introduction to its report and recommendations. In January, 1920, Mr. Earle 

 H. Clapp, assistant forester in charge of the branch of research of the Forest 

 Service, raised with a number of forest schools the question as to the training 

 of men planning to take up research or other work in the field of forest prod- 

 ucts. He pointed out that the experience of the Forest Service, for the past 

 15 years, particularly at the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wis., had 

 shown that, while such men must be thoroughly trained in engineering or 

 chemistry, their usefulness could be greatly increased by a thorough under- 

 standing of the fundamentals of forestry and their relation to the forest in- 

 dustries of the country, and suggested the possibility of working out cooperative 

 courses for students in forestry and engineering which would provide a training 

 of this sort. The interest manifested in this suggestion was so general that 

 arrangements were made for the holding of an informal conference of foresters, 

 engineers, and chemists at Madison on July 24, 1920, to discuss the entire 

 question. 



This conference indorsed the general principle that men desiring to specialize 

 in forest products work should have, in addition to their basic training in 

 engineering or the physical sciences, a thorough knowledge of wood as an 

 organic product as well as a clear understanding of the fundamentals of 

 forestry. It also arranged for the organization of a committee to go into the 

 entire question in detail and to present a report with recommendations to 

 this general conference on forest education. In order to cover the field as 

 thoroughly as possible, the committee was composed of two professors of for- 

 estry, one from the East and one from the West, a professor of civil engineer- 

 ing, an engineer in industrial work, and a member of the Forest Service. 

 While it has been impossible for the committee as a whole to hold any meet- 

 ings, its members have secured suggestions bearing on its work from nearly a 

 hundred individuals, including a wide representation of foresters, engineers, 

 and chemists in the Forest Service, in educational circles, and in industrial 

 life. These suggestions have proved most helpful and have been freely used 

 in the preparation of this report. 



Before taking up specifically the question of education the committee would 

 like to express its emphatic belief in the need for technically trained men in 

 the field of forest products. This applies not only to highly specialized re- 

 search, whether conducted by public or private agencies, but to the wide variety 

 of commercial operations involved in the handling of wood from the time it 



1 In connection with this report, attention is called to an article by Hugo Winken- 

 werder in the October, 1918, issue of the Journal of Forestry, entitled " Some Funda- 

 mental Problems in Forestry Education." Dean Winkemverder is one of the first and 

 moht ardent advocates of the principle that it is as much the business of (he forest 

 st-hools to train men for work in forest and wood utilization as for work in forest 

 production. 



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