Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/333

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EUROPEAN SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY.
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The course of instruction at Nancy covers two years, and is very much like that at the German schools.

Another school, called the school of Forest Guards, at Barres, was established in 1865, by the Director-General of Forests, on what had been the estate of an eminent arboriculturist, M. Vilmorin. It has been reorganized recently and its plan has been extended.

An Agronomic Institute has been established lately at the Conservatory of Arts and Trades at Paris, having for its object the advancement of agriculture. It has fifteen professors, several of whom will be instructors of forestry in some of its branches. In addition to the instruction in forestry thus given, the French forestry administration is accustomed to send out agents to instruct classes in forestry at several of the agricultural schools. There are also inferior forest schools for the education of subaltern foresters at Grenoble and Villers-Cotterets.

The Austrian Empire is second only to Germany in the abundance and character of its forest schools and in the general interest taken in the subject of forestry. At the head of the Austrian schools stands the Imperial High School of Agriculture and Forestry at Vienna. This was founded by a royal decree of 1872, upon the basis of a reorganized forest school originally established at Mariabrunn, near Vienna, at the entrance of the beautiful Wienerwald. The school occupied an old monastery, and in it were gathered the amplest apparatus for study, including very fine museums and collections. By the decree of 1872 this school was united with the Agricultural College of Vienna, and the two now constitute one school in two sections. The agricultural section was opened in 1872, the forest section in 1875. The consolidated institution is designed to give the best instruction both in agriculture and forestry. The course of instruction extends over three years. Two classes of students are admitted: the ordinary, who must bring a certificate that they have completed a course at a gymnasium or upper real-school, or a department school of equal rank; and the extraordinary, who must have sufficient preparatory training at least to enable them to understand the lectures, and who must have reached the age of seventeen years. The latter class are also obliged to pay tuition fees and can not receive the state stipends of which the ordinary pupils may avail themselves.

What are called secondary schools of forestry are established at Weisswasser in Bohemia, Eulenberg in Moravia, and at Lemberg in Galicia. These schools are formed on the German model. The course of instruction embraces two years. The requirements for admission are attendance for one year at a lower real-school or gymnasium, and in some cases a year's forest practice besides. Tuition is practically free.

There are also schools of forestry in Hungary. One is the Royal Hungarian Mining and Forest Academy at Schemnitz, which has been