FlIfTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 167 



Ranger schools conducted at colleges or universities are not desirable. While 

 such a school may be included for purposes of administration in a university or 

 college, it should have a separate plant in the woods, if possible, among the 

 forest and industrial conditions which it is the function of the school to serve. 

 Its standards, its faculty, its atmosphere, its morale should be its own, 

 rather than merged with those of a larger educational institution. Its specific 

 mission can be more effectually accomplished if it can thus develop its own indi- 

 viduality and be identified with the workshop where its students are to find their 

 vocation. Its instructors should, if possible, be professional foresters so that the 

 students may acquire a sympathetic understanding of forestry and breadth of 

 view as to its scope and aims. Grasp of the practical application of the subjects 

 taught is, however, essential; and the final test of the instructor must be ability 

 to equip his students directly for practice, to make them efficient workmen. 



The Length of the Ranger Course. 



As the graduates of ranger schools are trained to occupy relatively subordi- 

 nate positions with a comparatively low salary, the required expenditure of both 

 time and money should be as little as consistent with adequate training to pre- 

 pare the student for his actual needs. The investment which the average student 

 can reasonably be asked to make in his preparation bears a direct relation to the 

 position which he is to fill after the completion of his course. When the students 

 enter the ranger school with the preparation recommended, the course should be 

 restricted to a single school year of forty weeks. Under conditions prevailing in 

 this country at the present time, this is as much as can be consistently given to 

 ranger school training in most schools. It is believed, however, that in a limited 

 number of schools, where the equipment and faculty are- adequate, a second year's 

 work is desirable, during which the students who remain for this work may be 

 trained in the particular subject, largely through field work, in which they are later 

 to be engaged. Where arrangements can be made that will permit students to com- 

 bine remunerative work of suitable kind with the various studies, it permits the 

 lengthening of the course to two or even three years. Thus the forest ranger's 

 course in the University of Wisconsin, as at present organized, covers a period 

 of two years. Through cooperation with the State Board of Forestry the stu- 

 dents are employed and given remunerative work in which they obtain a large 

 amount of field practice. At least one-half of the entire course is remunerative 

 employment on the State forests. The Pennsylvania Forest Academy provides 

 similar remunerative employment during the progress of the course. 



Experience has already shown that at least in some parts of the country a 

 course of one year is preferable to a longer one. Thus at the ranger school of 

 the New York State College of Forestry, the course will probably be reduced 

 from two years to one, as shown in the following communication from Doctor 

 Baker : 



"It is very probable that we shall limit the course to one year and shall require 

 that the men who come in have a reasonable amount of experience in the woods. 

 We shall increase the amount of surveying given and cut down somewhat upon 

 the theoretical work in forestry. We shall pay a good deal of attention to forest 



