C—3

The fundamental concepts of the scheme are the continuous annual recruitment of some twenty carefully selected youths, the provision of both professional and vocational training to a much higher standard than has previously obtained, and the close association of officers of different Divisions —Professional, General, and Glerical — during their training as inducive to and essential for the optimum co-operation and mutual understanding between all officers in the normal practice of their duties. The European system of sending carefully selected applicants into the field for experience and observation before proceeding with any type of formal training has been adopted with excellent results. In regard to higher forestry education, the decision was reached that post-graduate training was preferable to the inclusion of forestry subjects in an under-graduate course, and a basic science degree (B.Sc. with some prescribed subjects) was laid down as a prerequisite. To provide the post-graduate course, the Forest Service planned to establish a departmental training centre at Rotorua, where this and all auxiliary branches of forestry training could be centralized. As the intention was to provide advanced forest training up to the highest professional standards, it was felt tha.t University recognition in the form of a degree could eventually be expected on the evidence of the results achieved. Meantime, of course, this would have meant that the early graduates of the centre would be deprived of forestry degree status and would thus be at a disadvantage in competition with later graduates whose post-graduate training might be recognized by the University. The conception of a provisional departmental post-graduate course has therefore been held in abeyance pending consideration by the Senate of the University of New Zealand of Forest Service proposals for the establishment of a Postgraduate Forestry School at the Rotorua Training Centre and affiliated with the Auckland University College. In any educational organization the teaching staff is obviously a vital factor, and in accordance both with prevailing opinion abroad and with its own experience the ForestService was forced to the conclusion that at least six highly trained lecturers were required adequately to staff a forestry training establishment to the standard demanded of modern forestry education. The maximum annual demand in New Zealand for graduate foresters is unlikely, on a long-term basis, to exceed ten, but the Forest Service plan provides a solution to the problem of reconciling an adequate lecturing staff with so small a number of students seeking post-graduate training annually. The need for the establishment of a Forest Experiment Station to co-ordinate all forestry research had been fully appreciated for many years, and it is proposed to link the Training Centre with the Experiment Station so as to enable the highly qualified specialist officers attached to the latter to act in the capacity of part-time lecturers at the Training Centre when required. Thus the Training Centre need have only two or three full-time lecturers (including the Principal) on its staff. Such an arrangement is justified not solely on the merit of economy of staff, but in the provision of opportunities for instructional, staff to keep thoroughly conversant with the latest forestry technique and practice—a factor of great importance in a progressive teaching institution. In addition to post-graduate forestry training, the scheme provides for courses for non-professional students, and in particular those technical trainees who undergo field training for advancement to forest-ranger status ; short courses for skilled workmen and junior staff in the specialized branches of forestry, mainly of an elementary nature ; and refresher courses for more senior officers of all Divisions are envisaged as essential parts of the functions of the Training Centre. The post-war programme of recruitment and training planned in 1939 is, in fact,, functioning ; certain factors tend to cloud the long-term issue, such as the necessity for special rehabilitation measures and the present abnormal shortage of trained forestersin .New Zealand justifying the recruitment of a number of professional foresters from

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