Benton MacKaye - Harvard and Forestry

Harvard and Forestry

After dropping out of school in order to prepare for college entrance exams on his own, in 1896 MacKaye followed his brothers—James, an engineer and philosopher, and Percy, a dramatist and poet—to Harvard University, where he studied geology. It took him two years to overcome deficiencies in subjects such as German, algebra and physics.

When he graduated in June 1905, MacKaye was still unsure what career he should embark upon. During this time, he read Thomas Henry Huxley's 1877 work Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature—a gift from his brother James, and a work that would prove influential in MacKaye's future regional planning. In October 1903, he enrolled in Harvard's newly established forestry school; he was the school's first student to graduate, in 1905. For the next five years, he alternated between teaching at Harvard's newly created forestry school near Petersham, Massachusetts, and working as a Forest Assistant with the Forest Service.

MacKaye made some important contributions during the early years of national forestry. While working as a Forest Examiner in the early teens, he performed groundbreaking research on the impacts of forest cover on runoff in New Hampshire's White Mountains. This was during a time in which an intense debate regarding the connection between deforestation and irregular stream flow was occurring, and MacKaye's scientific evidence that forest cover controlled stream flow helped in the creation of the White Mountain National Forest.