318 Great Britain. 



and a strong movement is on foot, led by foresters 

 returned from India, to commit the government to 

 some action with reference to the waste lands, and 

 towards providing for educational means. 



The government, although various committees 

 have recommended it, has remained callous in this 

 respect also, except that in 1904 the Commissioners 

 of Woods and Forests instituted a school (one in- 

 structor) in the Forest of Dean for the education of 

 woodsmen and foremen. 



As illustrative of the government's peculiar attitude 

 to forest policy in general, we may note a curious 

 anachronism, namely the act of 1894, which relieves 

 railway companies from liability for damage from 

 locomotive fires, if they can prove that they have 

 exercised all care, although traction engines cannot 

 offer this excuse. 



The first attempt to secure educational facilities 

 dates to 1884 when a chair of forestry was established 

 in the Royal Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, 

 an institution designed to prepare for service in India 

 purely. Through private subscriptions another chair 

 of forestry was instituted in 1887 at the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, and, at present, several agricultural 

 colleges, notably that of Cirencester and the Univer- 

 sities of Cambridge and Oxford, had made provisions 

 for teaching the subject in a way, but outside of Cooper's 

 Hill no adequate education in forestry was obtainable 

 in Great Britain, until 1905. 



In 1905, the forest department in Cooper's Hill was 

 transferred to Oxford, the three years' course — one 

 year to be spent in the forests of Germany or other 



