TEACHING
Approximately 110 Foresters are engaged in teaching in the United States to-day. Their pay varies from about $1000 to about $3000, and is likely to increase rather more rapidly than that of other professional teachers, since less of them are available. It is not likely, however, that the number of openings in teaching forestry will be large within the next ten years.
TRAINING
The length of time which his training is to take and the particular courses of instruction which he shall pursue are to the young man contemplating the study of forestry matters of the first importance. The first thing to insist on in that connection is that the training must be thorough. It is natural that a young man should be eager to begin his life work and therefore somewhat impatient of the long grind of a thorough schooling. But however natural, it is not the part of wisdom to cut short the time of preparation. When the serious work of the trained Forester begins later on, there will be little or no time to fill the gaps left at school, and the earnest desire of the young Forester will be that he had spent more time in his preparation rather than less. In this matter I speak as one who has gathered a conviction from personal experience, and believes he knows.
It would be useless to attempt to strike an average of the work prescribed and the courses given at the various forest schools. I shall describe, therefore, not an average system of instruction but one which, in the judgment of men entitled to an opinion, and in my own judgment, is sound, practical, and effective.
Forest schools may roughly be divided between those which do not prepare men for professional work in forestry, and those which do. The latter may be divided again into undergraduate schools and graduate schools. Most of the former offer a four-year undergraduate course, and their students receive their degrees at the same time as other members of the University who entered at the same time with them. The graduate schools require a college degree, or its equivalent in certain subjects, before they will receive a student. The men who have completed their courses have usually, therefore, pursued more extensive and more advanced studies in forestry, are better trained, and are themselves older and more ready to accept the responsibilities which forestry brings upon them. For these reasons, the graduate school training is by far the more desirable, in my opinion.
The subjects required for entrance to a graduate forest school should include at least one full year in college botany, covering the general morphology, histology, and physiology of plants, one course each in geology, physics, inorganic chemistry, zoölogy, and economics, with mathematics through trigonometry, and a reading knowledge of French or German. Some acquaintance with mechanical drawing is also desirable but not absolutely necessary. Other courses which are extremely desirable, if not altogether essential, are mineralogy, meteorology, mechanics, physical geography, organic chemistry, and possibly calculus, which may be of use in timber physics.
One or two forest schools begin their course of training for the first year in July instead of in October, in order to give their students some acquaintance with the woods from the Forester's standpoint before the more formal courses begin. The result of this plan is to give increased vividness and reality to all the courses which follow the work in the woods, to make clear the application of what is taught, and so to add greatly to the efficiency of the teaching.
In addition to this preliminary touch with the woods, any wise plan of teaching will include many forest excursions and much practical field work as vitally important parts of the instruction. This outdoor work should occur throughout the whole course, winter and summer, and in addition, the last term of the senior year may well be spent wholly in the woods, where the students can be trained in the management of logging operations and milling, and can get their final practice work in surveying and map-making, in preparing forest working plans, estimating timber, laying out roads and trails, making plans for lumber operations, and other similar practical work. Several of the best forest schools have adopted this plan.