smith] forestry IN GENERAL EDUCATION 145 



professors of economics. What department it is regarded as 

 falling under is, to my mind, relatively unimportant. But surely 

 it is important that our students who are preparing for life and 

 for citizenship, whether that preparation is in the college course 

 on in the high school course, should at least have the chance to 

 find out how different possible courses in our use of forests and 

 of other natural resources will affect the public welfare. 1 

 think myself this is putting it far too mildly. I have already 

 said that I believe a proper preparation for citizenship necessarily 

 involves training to the right attitude on these questions. If 

 this is true it is the business of education — secondary education 

 and higher education — to give the training. 



And it must be a moral training. It must recognize and 

 make clear the duty of the individual, and the responsibility that 

 rests upon the community in matters of public welfare, as well 

 as the effect on the public welfare of certain courses of action. 

 The fact is that our ethics have not caught up with the situation. 

 Old conceptions encumber the path. There is much that has 

 not yet been thought out clearly. Yet with the rising tide of 

 national consciousness, with the awakening of public conscience., 

 with the demand for the moralization of business, with the grow- 

 ing appeal of ideals, interest in humanity, and eagerness for 

 service that seems to be taking hold upon our people, and espe- 

 cially upon our young people, may we not believe that a new 

 forward movement in civilization is possible? May we not be- 

 lieve that the public welfare is to be sought as never before 

 through collective action in man's relation to the earth upon 

 which he lives? 



Now I do not believe that forestry, as such, should neces- 

 sarily be made a separate course, either in schools or in colleges. 

 But I do believe that from the first stages up — from the nature- 

 study in the lowest grades to the courses of the university — 

 provision should be made for teaching the conceptions which are 

 really involved in forestry and which we have reached as a result 

 of our National Forest work. And I believe it is the duty of 

 those who are engaged in the work of forestry education to do 

 everything that they can both to put into pedagogic form the 

 material which forestry furnishes and to promote the introduc- 

 tion of courses which shall give the general student what I hope 

 you will let me call, with a right understanding of what I mean, 

 the cultural — that is the whole-man-developing value of forestry. 



