Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/328

314 forest botany in particular, with anatomy of plants, vegetable physiology and pathology, and botanical excursions; microscopy; zoölogy, with especial study of forest insects, preparations, and excursions: to all of which 840 hours are allotted. 2. Mathematics.—Geodesy; interest and rent account; wood-measuring; surveying and leveling exercises; plan-drawing exercises: 440 hours. 3. Economical Sciences.—Public economy and finances: 48 hours. Whole time allotted to "Fundamental Sciences," 1,328 hours. In the "Principal Sciences" are included what relate especially to forests, their cultivation, protection, technics in various branches, legal and customary usages, etc., with forest excursions: to all of which 980 hours are allotted. In the "Secondary Sciences" are jurisprudence (civil and criminal law, constitutional rights, etc.), construction of roads, and shooting exercises: to which 340 hours are given. Of the total, 2,648 hours of instruction, 50 per cent, are given to the "fundamental," 37 per cent, to the "principal," and 13 per cent, to the "secondary" sciences. The average time of lessons, counting the five semesters as including ninety-three weeks, is 28·5 hours per week, or 4·9 hours per day. From this it will be seen that nearly five hours are given to lectures each day. Nearly as much more time is expected to be given to study, making almost ten hours of daily work for the students. If we compare this with the average time during which the students in our colleges are employed, it will be seen that a course of instruction at one of these forest academies is more than equivalent, in the amount of work done, to an ordinary college course.

The forest schools, as at present existing, may be divided into three classes, according as they are forest schools strictly and independently—that is, schools situated in the forest as well as teaching the art of forest management or as they form only a part of the general course of instruction at the university or polytechnic school; or as, again, they are united with agricultural schools, and the attempt is made to teach forestry and agriculture together. There has been of late years a good deal of discussion, in Germany especially, as to which of these arrangements is to be preferred. The academies at Neustadt-Eberswalde, Münden, Eisenach, and at Nancy, in France, are examples of the first class. Those at Giessen, at the Polytechnic School at Zürich and the projected arrangement at the university of Munich, are examples of the second class; while the establishments at Hohenheim, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Stockholm, are examples of the third class.

On behalf of the first class it is urged that when the academy is located in the forest there will be greater facilities for the practical study of all that relates to the growth of trees, their influence upon climate, and the like. On behalf of a connection of the forest academies with the universities and polytechnic schools or with schools of agriculture, it is urged that this would be an economical