THE ROLE OF FOREST RANGER SCHOOLS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES
Forest Ranger Schools are schools which offer technical, sub-professional forestry training at the vocational level. Data included in Part I of this paper was obtained from five Canadian and four United States ranger schools, whose graduates aggregate 1870 and 1233 respectively. Information necessary to Part II was obtained from seven government agencies and fourteen private companies in Canada and from three government agencies and nine private companies in the United States.Ranger school training should be essentially practical in nature. At the same time training should he sufficiently technical to provide the trainee with sound reasons for the approaches and techniques which he uses. It should also bring the graduate to the point where he speaks the same language as the professional forester and can appreciate the professional point of view.Ranger school training should not be considered as a substitute for, or a shortcut to, professional training at the university level. Nor should ranger schools be confused with, or assume the identity of, pre-forestry schools. The objective of ranger school training is to bridge the gap between the woodsman and the professional forester; when considered in this light it appears to be a distinct and separate phase of forestry training.There appears to be a need for technically trained men between the woodsman and forester levels. Ranger schools should be able to train men who would not become foresters to fill positions which would not be filled by foresters. Various government agencies and private companies have indicated that ranger school graduates complement professional foresters instead of competing with them. Ranger schools and their graduates appear to have made a worthwhile contribution to the profession of forestry and should continue to do so in the future.