5 2,1 
 
Cornell University Library 
 S 21.C8T8 
 The united States Depart^^^^^^^^ 
 
The United States Department af Agriculture, 
 1862-1912 
 
 A. C. Tras, Ph; D., Sc. 13.; 
 
 Director bf the OfiSce of E^cperitnent Stations, United States 
 
 Department of Agriculture,: Washington, D. C, 
 
 The Ipxperiinent Stations 
 
 H. C, White, Ph. D, b. C. L, LL, D. 
 
 Formerly President Georgia State iCoUege of Agriculture, 
 
 University pf Georgia, A.thens, GaV 
 
 "The Influence of the Morrill Act upon American 
 JHigher Education 
 
 W. O. Thompson, D. p., LL. D. 
 President Ohio State University^ Columbus, Ohio 
 
 The American Agricultural Colleges 
 
 By ':■ :, ' ' ■■■ 
 
 ' Eugene Davenport,, M. Agr., LL. D. 
 Dean College of Agriculture of the University of Illinois 
 Director Illinois Ajgricultiiral Experiment Station 
 
 {From Proceedings of the Twenty-sixthA^nnual Convention of the 
 j^ssociation of American Agricwlfnrdl,. Colleges^ and 
 Experiment Stdtions, Atlanta, Ga.; 
 (^ ,' J^ov, 13-15. ipi2'j. 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000868350 
 
The United States Department of Agriculture, 
 
 1862-1912 
 
 :;fTrue, Ph. D., Sc. D. 
 Director of the Office of Experiment Stations, United States 
 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. G. 
 
 The Experiment Stations 
 
 By 
 
 H. G. White, Ph. D., D. G. L., LL. D. 
 
 Formerly President Georgia State GoUege of Agriculture, 
 
 University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 
 
 The Influence of the Morrill Act upon American 
 Higher Education 
 
 By 
 
 W. O. Thompson, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 President (Dhio State University, Golumbus, Ohio 
 
 The American Agricultural Colleges 
 
 By 
 
 Eugene Davenport, M. Agr., LL. D. 
 
 Dean GoUege of Agriculture of 'the University of Illinois 
 
 Director Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station 
 
 {From Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Conventio7i of the 
 
 Association of American Agricultural Colleges and 
 
 Experiment Stations, Atlanta, Ga., 
 
 Nov. 13-15 1912). 
 
THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE, 1862-1912 
 
 By a. C. Tbub 
 
 George Washiagton, as first President of the United States, sug- 
 gested to Congress in 179G tlie establishment of a public agency for 
 the promotion of agriculture. This was to be modeled after the British 
 Board of Agriculture established in 1793, of which Washington was 
 himself an honorary member. Sixty-six years later, his greatest suc- 
 cessor. President Abraham Lincoln, signed the bill creating the United 
 States Department of Agriculture. This delay was as Washington 
 had expected, for he wrote his friend Sir John Sinclair, "It will be 
 some time, I fear, before an agricultural society with congressional 
 aid will be established in this country; we must walk, as other 
 countries have done, before we can run." Meanwhile, however, offi- 
 cers of the United States had been spending public funds for agri- 
 cultural work. For forty years the State Department was the chief 
 worker in this line, though the Navy helped some. Through the 
 consular service, Barbary and Merino sheep, Chinese and Blench hogs, 
 and many varieties of plants and seeds were imported. The State 
 Department then had principal charge of the issuing of patents and 
 turned the distribution of these seeds and plants over to its Patent 
 Office. When this became a separate bureau in 1836 and Henry L. 
 Ellsworth, a practical Connecticut farmer, became Commissioner of 
 Patents, he worked over hours in securing free gifts of seeds and 
 plants and congressional franks wherewith to distribute them. He 
 also went after an appropriation and in 1839 got $1,000, "to be 
 taken from the Patent Office fund, for the- purpose of collecting and 
 distributing seeds, prosecuting agricultural investigations, and pro- 
 curing agricultural statistics." During the next ten years, with three 
 failures. Congress actually gave aggregate appropriations of $16,500 
 for the advancement of agriculture throughout the United States. 
 Then the Patent Office and its agricultural business were transferred 
 to the comparatively new Interior Department. Appropriations soon 
 increased ten-fold, with some fluctuations, and by 1862, that is in 
 13 years, $475,000 had been spent for agriculture and this came from 
 the Treasury. A chemist, botanist, and statistician were employed, 
 meteorological data were regularly furnished by the Smithsonian In- 
 stitution and information on many agricultural subjects was published 
 in the annual reports. 
 
 During this period, the system of seed distribution as a con- 
 gressional perauisite became firmly established and for many years 
 thereafter was one of the principal functions of the Department. It 
 is now numbered among its minor activities, though a quarter of a 
 million dollars are still annually spent for purchasing and distributing 
 600 tons of seeds. Out of it has grown a system of agricultural ex- 
 ploration through which every corner of the world has been searched 
 for plants desirable for introduction into our agriculture. While it 
 is true that large sums of money have necessarily been spent for 
 very ordinary seeds to fill the millions of packages required by the 
 congressional distribution, in some cases very valuable varieties have 
 been introduced at comparatively little expense. Among these are 
 Kaffir corn. Durum wheat, Japanese rices, Swedish select oats. Ex- 
 celsior white Schoenen oats. Chevalier barley, Fultz wheat, and the 
 - Navel orange. 
 
 In the Patent Office period, the principle was established that the 
 Federal Government would use science for the advancement of agri- 
 culture and there was a small beginning of experimental inquiry in 
 a so-called propagating garden. There were even fond anticipations 
 that agriculture would become an exact science. Thus in 1842 Com- 
 missioner Ellsworth says: 
 
"The value of the agricultural products almost exceeds belief. 
 If the application of the sciences he yet further made to husbandry, 
 -what vast improvements may he anticipated! To allude to but a single 
 branch of the subject, agricultural chemistry is at length a popular 
 and useful study. Instead of groping along with experiments to prove 
 what crops lands will bear to best advantage, an Immediate and direct 
 analysis of the soil shows at once its adaptation for a particular 
 manure or crop." 
 
 But there were many doubters not only of the vaJue of science 
 as applied to agriculture, but also of the desirability of governmental 
 aid to agriculture. Hence appropriations fluctuated and sometimes 
 were cut off. A wave of pessimism swept over the Patent Oflice in 
 1860, when Commissioner Bishop wrote that "so thoroughly have the 
 public become impressed with the importance and necessity of im- 
 proving agriculture that it may well be doubted whether anything 
 Congress may do can give an additional impetus to the movement." 
 He therefore recommended that appropriations be confined to the 
 funds required for publishing agricultural information and collecting 
 and distributing foreign seeds and plants. 
 
 With a change of Commissioner courage revived and in the re- 
 port of 1860, written in 1861, there is a long argument for the ex- 
 tension of the agricultural work of the government by Thos. G. 
 Clemson, who styles himself "Superintendent of the Agricultural Af- 
 fairs of the United States." 
 
 Then came Lincoln's administration and Commissioner David P. 
 Holloway of Indiana, who made in his report for 1861 the last and 
 most complete agricultural manual issued by the Patent Office. This 
 contained a bold and able plea for the creation "of a Department of the 
 Productive Arts," to care for "all the industrial interests of the country, 
 but especially for agriculture." Congress adopted a portion of the 
 Commissioner's plan and- established a Department of Agriculture. 
 This act became a law by the approval of President Lincoln on the 
 15th of May, 1862, and on the first of July of the same year the new 
 Department was formally organized in the rooms of the Patent Of- 
 fice previously occupied by the agricultural division of that Office. It 
 was to be an independent Department, but its chief officer was not 
 a member of the President's cabinet. 
 
 The duties of the Department as defined in its charter are "to 
 acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful 
 information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most gen- 
 eral and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate 
 and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants." 
 
 Hon. Isaac Newton of Pennsylvania, who had been the super- 
 intendent of the agricultural division of the Patent Office, was ap- 
 pointed the first Commissioner of Agriculture. Mr. Newton had been 
 a practical and progressive farmer, was one of the first and most 
 active members of the State Agricultural Society of Pennsylvania, and 
 had for years urged upon Congress the importance of establishing 
 such a department as that over which he was now called to preside. 
 He took for his plan of development of the Department a scheme 
 outlined by Judge Buell of New York over twenty years before. This 
 included : 
 
 (1) "Collecting, arranging, publishing and disseminating, for the 
 benefit of the Nation, statistical and other useful information in re- 
 gard to agriculture in its widest acceptation, embracing not only field 
 and horticultural plants and domestic animals, but also rural em- 
 bellishment, veterinary art and household economy; 
 
 (2) Collecting and distributing seeds and plants; 
 
 (3) Correspondence with farmers and others; 
 
 (4) Testing by experiment agricultural implements, seeds and 
 plants ; 
 
 (5) Operating a chemical laboratory; 
 
 (6) Maintaining a professorship of botany and entomology; 
 
 (7) Creating an agricultural library and museum." 
 
All this was to be accomplished by "concentrating the ripest agri- 
 cultural experience and scholarship." 
 
 Commissioner Newton worked with much vigor and enthusiasm 
 at his immediate task, hut he also looked ahead with prophetic 
 vision, though he was moving in the darkest days of the Republic. 
 In closing his report for 1862 he says: 
 
 "It is hard to realize, and yet as true as Holy Writ, that some 
 who shall read today these lines will live to see 100,000,000 of freemen 
 dwelling in this dear land of ours. With peace and union restored, 
 based on equity and freedom; with iron bands stretched from the 
 pines of Maine to the Golden Gate; with the hum of factories on 
 10,000 streams and swift-wing commerce flying to distant lands, what 
 pen can sketch the possibility of this young giant of the West." 
 
 Commissioner Newton made good progress in carrying out the 
 program he had adopted for the Department's work. "The clerical force 
 of the former agricultural division, was increased; a chemist was en- 
 gaged and a laboratory established; a skilled horticulturist was placed 
 in charge of the propagating or experimental garden; greater activity 
 in the collection and dissemination of current agricultural facts was 
 inaugurated and a larger quantity of seeds and cuttings were dis- 
 tributed. A statistical branch was organized in 1863. To ascertain at 
 the earliest practical period, the condition of the crops, their yield, the 
 prices obtained on them, and other facts connected with current agri- 
 cultural operations, the Commissioner issued during 18G3 periodical 
 circulars to farmers in every county of the loyal states. The results 
 thus obtained were given to the public through the medium of monthly 
 reports, which have been continued to the present time, with such 
 modifications of their original features as time and experience have 
 seemed to render necessary. 
 
 The publication of monthly and bi-monthly meteorological tables 
 furnished by the Smithsonian Institution was commenced at the same 
 time (and continued until 1872). An entomologist was also employed. 
 The government reservation In Washington lying between the Smith- 
 sonian Institution and the Washington Monument, and embracing 35 
 acres was assigned to the Department of Agriculture and was chiefly 
 used for several years as an experiment farm." 
 
 Commissioner Newton's successors were Horace Capron of Illi- 
 nois, Frederick Watts of Pennsylvania, William H. LeDuc of Minne- 
 sota, George B. Loring of Massachusetts, and Norman J. Colman of 
 Missouri. Under them^ the work of the Department gradually broad- 
 ened and its Income increased from $80,000 in 1863 to $1,134,480 In 
 1889. 
 
 Divisions of botany, microscopy, pomology, ornithology and mam- 
 malogy, and forestry and a section of vegetable pathology were or- 
 ganized. Studies in veterinary medicine led to the creation of the 
 Bureau of Animal Industry in 1884. Some studies were made on ir- 
 rigation and road building. Much chemical work was done on sugar- 
 making, particularly from sorghum and sugar beets. The botanical 
 studies on grasses were important and a large amount of work was 
 done on the National Herbarium in cooperation with the Smithsonian 
 Institution. Under Mr. William Saunders many important Introduc- 
 tions of economic plants from foreign countries were made. He will 
 also be long remembered as one of the founders of the Grange. Mr. 
 J. R. Dodge, as statistician and editor, perfected the system of crop 
 reporting and long exerted great Influence in the development of the 
 Department as a bureau of information on agricultural subjects. In 
 economic entomology the Department gained an enviable pre-eminence 
 during this period under the brilliant leadership of Prof. C. V. Riley. 
 
 With the establishment of the Bureau of Animal Industry, under 
 Dr. D. E. Salmon, the Department begaji the exercise of large ad- 
 ministrative functions affecting the welfare of our people generally. 
 Its first great enterprise was the stamping out of pleuro-pneumonia. 
 This required what seemed at the time enormous appropriations. 
 
Half a million dollars, or nearly half the Department's budget, was 
 appropriated in 1889 for this Bureau. 
 
 Near the close of Commissioner Colman's administration the De- 
 partment entered into organic and vital relations with the agri- 
 cultural colleges and experiment stations throughout the country 
 by the establishment of the Office of Experiment Stations, which fol- 
 lowed the passage of the Hatch act. 
 
 Commissioner Colman had long been convinced that there should 
 be a closer union between the state experiment stations and in his 
 first report he also speaks of the great need of "a more practical 
 cooperation between these Institutions and the Department of Agri- 
 culture." Only a month after taking office he called a meeting of 
 delegates from the agricultural colleges and experiment stations to 
 be held at the Department, the first official gathering of the kind in 
 this country and the forerunner of this association. This conven- 
 tion not only adopted resolutions favoring national aid to experiment 
 stations but also approved Commissioner Colman's recommendation 
 for a closer relation by urging the creation of a branch of the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture which should be a special medium of intercom- 
 munication and exchange between the colleges and stations and should 
 publish a periodical bulletin of agricultural progress, containing In 
 popular form the latest results in the progress of agricultural edu- 
 cation, investigation, and experimentation in this and other countries. 
 Mr. Colman followed this up by active efforts for the passage of the 
 Hatch act. He showed his appreciation of the need of formulating 
 and encouraging a high scientific standard for the work of the sta- 
 tions by appointing as first director of the Office of Experiment 
 Stations, Prof. W. O. Atwater, the distinguished chemist, who had 
 organized the first state experiment station on the model of the 
 German stations. 
 
 Meanwhile a movement was on foot to raise the Department to 
 the first rank by making its head a member of the President's 
 cabinet. This had begun as far back as 1876, when the National 
 Grange had passed resolutions in part as follows: 
 
 Whereas the agricultural masses compose one-half of the popu- 
 lation of the free States of America upon whom ultimately rest the 
 taxes which sustain the Government; 
 
 Resolved: That American agriculturists demand that they shall 
 be recognized as a real factor in the Government by the establish- 
 ment of a bureau of agriculture, to be presided over by a cabinet 
 officer, who shall organize the same upon a plan to be devised by the 
 wisdom of Congress, which shall embrace to the fullest the agri- 
 cultural interests of 20,000,000 of people." 
 
 This demand was persistently pressed by the Grange and, later, 
 by the Farmers' Congress and other influential bodies. Congress at 
 length recognized the advisability of promoting the Department and 
 on February 9, 1889, President Cleveland signed the bill making the 
 change. Commissioner Colman received the high compliment of ap- 
 pointment as first Secretary of Agriculture and occupied this position 
 about four weeks. 
 
 Then followed two Secretaries With very different character- 
 istics. Gen. Jeremiah M. Rusk was a bluff soldier, without learning, 
 but of great native intelligence and administrative ability, an execu- 
 tive trained in war and In the governorship of Wisconsin. He wished 
 the Department to grow broadly and to be strong along practical lines. 
 J. Sterling Morton was a scholar and trained writer, but without ad- 
 ministrative experience. A Democrat of the old school with strong 
 belief that the powers of the Federal Government should be very 
 limited, he found it difficult to adjust the theoretical views which 
 he had for many years advocated with the practical requirements of 
 managing a Department whose work from his point of view was neces- 
 sarily paternalistic. He wished therefore to Improve the quality of 
 the scientific and literary work of the Department but to restrict its 
 functions, though in doing this he had to encounter strong and In- 
 
creasing opposition. Associated with, these secretaries -were assist- 
 ant secretaries of equally diverse personalities. Edwin "Willits, former 
 president of the Michigan Agricultural College, an educated lawyer, 
 slow, cool, conservative, was Secretary Rusk's assistant, and Charles 
 W. Dabney, Jr., president of the University of Tennessee, a trained 
 scientist, doctor of philosophy, combining the best traditional traits 
 of a gentleman of the old South with the ardent ambitions and broader 
 outlook of the new South, was Secretary Morton's assistant. Under 
 such leadership the Department developed conservatively but strongly. 
 It gained In dignity, freedom from petty political control, develop- 
 ment of sound scientific standards, usefulness of practical work and 
 breadth of administrative functions. 
 
 Under Secretary Rusk's administration both the scientific and 
 administrative work of the Bureau of Animal Industry was greatly 
 strengthened; the "Weather Bureau was established by transfer from 
 the Signal Service of the War Department and the weather forecasting 
 was greatly broadened; the Farmers' Bulletins, originating in the Of- 
 fice of Experiment Stations, were made general departmental publi- 
 cations; the first volumes of the Experiment Station Record were 
 issued. Under Secretary Morton, the divisions of soils, agrostology, 
 dairying, and road inquiry were organized, investigations In human 
 nutrition were begun, regular inspection of the work and expendi- 
 tures of the state experiment stations was undertaken, and the publi- 
 cation of the Yearbook was begun. 
 
 Under both administrations the direct administration of the 
 scientific work of the Department was largely given to the Assistant 
 Secretary. The amount of scientific work was greatly increased and 
 its average quality was much improved. At the close of this period 
 the annual appropriation for the Department had risen to about 
 $2,500,000, as compared with $1,134,000 in 1889. 
 
 With the close of President Cleveland's second administration; a 
 new era in the government of the United States began. The theory 
 of extreme limitation of the functions of the Federal Government 
 which for many years had been dominant and always influential had 
 reached the point of abandonment as a practical force. The move- 
 ment of great forces, some of which are world-wide in their influence, 
 had caused a profound change in the mental attitude of the American 
 people toward the National Government, and indeed toward all gov- 
 ernments. Unparalleled material prosperity, vast accumulation and 
 concentration of wealth, much higher standards of living, vastly 
 greater complexity of social and political organization have made 
 necessary more highly organized governmental machinery. The co- 
 operative spirit which has led to vast organizations of capital and 
 labor has spread to governmental afCalrs and the people are more and 
 more demanding that the National Government shall do the things 
 which promote the general welfare. The universal spread of educa- 
 tion and the incalculable value of the application of science to the ad- 
 vancement of material civilization have created an ever increasing 
 call for the scientist and the expert in governmental business. 
 Moreover, the people no longer stand in awe of their government 
 but are seeking its aid and advice in a thousand ways. We hardly 
 yet realize the tremendous growth of the advisory functions of govern- 
 ment in recent years and the potentialities of this movement. We 
 have occupied our continent and exploited our resources until we see 
 their limitations and feel the need of their conservation. The Spanish 
 war made us a world power, greatly Increased our territory and our 
 human obligations, and occasioned the welling up in the hearts of our 
 people of patriotic and moral emotions which bound us together in a 
 firmer union and set us at work to establish our great democracy on 
 a broader basis of fraternalism. It is at such a time that our agri- 
 culture has reached the end of its pioneer stage. The available land 
 has passed into private ownership, the ranges have lost their virgin 
 abundance of forage, the forests require expert control for their 
 preservation. Population has grown to such extent that the demands 
 
for food, clothing, and shelter are enormous. Prom being a simple 
 and depressed industry, agriculture is becoming a highly complicated 
 and progressive industry. The universal use of machinery, the neces- 
 sary changes in methods, crops, and animal husbandry to meet the 
 new and varied demands of different regions, have caused an un- 
 paralleled reorganization of agricultural industries. The many suc- 
 cessful applications of science to agriculture and the evident need of 
 technical education in agricultural science and practice have caused 
 the establishment in the United States of the most comprehensive 
 and far-reaching system of agricultural research and education ever 
 devised. 
 
 Such is a rough outline of the conditions under which there came 
 to the head of the Department of Agriculture in 1897 a man with the 
 high native intelligence and "canny" qualities of a Scotchman, the 
 ambition and vigor of a pioneer farmer of Iowa, the close touch with 
 the thought of the people gained by long experience In political life, 
 the subtle understanding of the requirements of national legislation 
 obtained in several terms in the House of Representatives, the broad 
 outlook on agricultural science and education won through teaching 
 and experimenting at the Iowa Agricultural College and Experiment 
 Station. Through four administrations under Presidents McKinley, 
 Roosevelt, and Taft has James Wilson been Secretary of Agriculture. 
 Is it any wonder that during this period the Department has had a 
 marvelous growth and development? This is only faintly indicated 
 in the statement that during that time the annual income of the 
 Department has risen from $2,500,000 to over $20,000,000 and the 
 number of employees from less than 2,500 to 13,800. 
 
 At the time Professor Wilson left his chair at the Iowa college, 
 a movement was on foot under the vigorous leadership of this associ- 
 ation to reorganize our agricultural colleges on the basis of agri- 
 culture itself and to build up real agricultural faculties through 
 specialization in agricultural science. The agricultural experiment 
 stations and kindred institutions in various countries had collected 
 the materials for a science of agriculture and a real beginning had 
 been made of reducing this to pedagogical form. Secretary Wilson 
 understood the significance of this movement and proceeded to re- 
 organize the Department largely on this basis. As now organized, 
 the Department embraces the Office of the Secretary, Weather Bureau, 
 Bureaus of Animal Industry, Plant Industry, Forest Service, Soils, 
 Roads, Statistics, Chemistry, Entomology, Biological Survey, Experi- 
 ment Stations, the Library, and Divisions of Publications and Accounts. 
 
 Broadly classified, the functions of the Department are (1) ad- 
 ministrative, (2) advisory, (3) investigational, (4) informational and 
 (5) educational. These have been so far developed and expanded 
 that the Department's business vitally affects the daily life of all 
 our people. 
 
 Under administrative duties are those relating to the enforce- 
 ment of the meat inspection, food and drug and insecticide and 
 fungicide laws, with regard to both domestic and imported products; 
 the control of quarantine rendered necessary by sheep and cattle 
 diseases, and the inspection of cattle-carrying vessels; the manage- 
 ment of the National forest reserves; the regulation of interstate 
 commerce of game animals and the control of the importation of 
 noxious and other animals; the congressional seed distribution; the 
 supervision of the federal funds granted to the state experiment 
 stations and the direct management of stations in Alaska, Hawaii, 
 Porto Rico, and Guam. 
 
 The extent of the meat inspection is indicated by the fact that it 
 it carried on in nearly 1,000 establishments in about 250 cities and 
 towns. During the past six years there were inspected at slaughter 
 321,000,000 animals and over 5,000,000 carcasses or parts of carcasses 
 were condemned. 
 
 Through its laboratory in the Bureau of Chemistry at Wash- 
 ington and 21 branch laboratories throughout tjie country, the De- 
 
partment is exercising a rigid inspection of a great variety of foods 
 and drugs which, enter into interstate and foreign commerce. Nearly 
 1,200 cases were reported in 1911 for criminal prosecution or seizure 
 of adulterated and misbranded goods. 
 
 The management of the National forests involves the administra- 
 tive control of 192,000,000 acres or 300,000 square miles of territory 
 in the western states and Alaska, a domain equivalent to the com- 
 bined areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. 
 
 In its advisory capacity, the Department conducts a vast and 
 varied correspondence. Besides this, there are some large operations 
 which have in them an important advisory factor. Such, for example, 
 are the dally weather forecasts; the monthly crop reports; the national 
 soil survey; and the cooperative farm demonstration work. Many 
 agents of the Department are now giving much of their time to advis- 
 ing personally the farmers in the districts where they are located. 
 Notable examples of this are the services of the Department's road, 
 irrigation and drainage engineers. In a similar way the Office of 
 Experiment Stations has had a broad influence on the development 
 of the agricultural colleges, schools and experiment stations. 
 
 The technical, scientific and practical investigations of the De- 
 partment constitute a large share of its business and cover a very 
 wide range. All the bureaus are engaged in this work and a mere 
 list of the projects would far outrun the limits of this paper. They 
 include laboratory investigations in a number of sciences, field experi- 
 ments in many states and territories, studies of natural conditions 
 and agricultural possibilities on a large scale, the exploration of many 
 foreign countries for plants, beneficial insects, etc.; the devising of 
 means to defend the farmer against fraud or to protect him against 
 the ravages of insects and diseases; engineering studies on road 
 building, irrigation and drainage; economic studies relating to farm 
 management, cost of production, etc., etc. Illustrations of such work, 
 are the following: 
 
 The Weather Bureau has carried on a large amount of meteoro- 
 logical research in connection with the development of its forecasting 
 system. In recent years its investigation of conditions in the upper 
 air by means of kites or balloons carrying self-recording instruments 
 have been important. 
 
 The investigations of the Bureau of Animal Industry on the 
 cattle tick and the means of controlling Texas fever is an example 
 of scientific research resulting in a large practical outcome. 
 
 The Bureau of Plant Industry has had a large part in the de- 
 velopment of the science of plant pathology, as illustrated by its 
 work on pear blight, peach leaf curl and other orchard diseases and 
 diseases of cereals and forage crops. Much successful work has been 
 done on the breeding of improved varieties of cotton, corn, tobacco, 
 forage crops and cereals. 
 
 The Forest Service has been largely responsible for developing 
 what may be called the American science of forestry. 
 
 The Bureau of Soils has rendered great service by the emphasis 
 it has laid on physical studies of soils and the broadening of the 
 scientific point of view regarding the relation of the chemical and 
 biological make-up of soils to the requirements of plants and of soil 
 management. 
 
 Besides the important work on sugars previously referred to, the 
 Bureau of Chemistry has done a very large amount of work on 
 what may be called the science of food adulteration. 
 
 The Bureau of Entomology has made studies of all the principal 
 injurious insects of the United States and had a very large share 
 in devising methods for their control. Illustrations of its work are 
 the investigations on the cotton caterpillar, hop plant louse, clover 
 seed midge, San Jose scale, pear thrips, Mexican cotton boll weevil, 
 mosquitoes, horsefiy, etc., and the importation of the Australian lady- 
 bird and the Algerian fig-fertilizing insect. 
 
10 
 
 The Biological Survey collected the first accurate data regarding 
 the migration of North American birds and has made broad studies 
 of the life and crop zones on this continent and formulated laws of 
 temperature control of geographic distribution of terrestrial animals. 
 The Bureau of Statistics has done a great work in developing the 
 statistical presentation of agricultural facts and their bearing on our 
 agricultural industries. 
 
 The Office of Public Roads has made studies of decomposition 
 of rock powders which have led to important discoveries of the 
 cementing value of road materials. ' 
 
 The Office of Experiment Stations, in cooperation with outside 
 institutions, has made impertant contributions to the science of nu- 
 trition, especially through the devising and use of an improved form 
 of respiration calorimeter. 
 
 Taken together, the Department's investigations constitute the 
 largest amount of definite and systematic investigations conducted 
 under a single organization that can be found anywhere in the world. 
 United with the similar work of the state experiment stations, they are 
 accumulating a body of knowledge relating to agriculture which is 
 already by far the largest contribution to the science of agriculture. 
 In this way a broad, sure and permanent foundation for the future 
 agricultural prosperity of the United States is being laid. 
 
 As a public agency for the dissemination of information on agri- 
 cultural subjects the work of the Department has reached vast pro- 
 portions. During the year ended June 30, 1912, the Department issued 
 2,110 publications, aggregating 34,678,557 copies. Many of these are 
 technical reports of scientific investigations published in small edi- 
 tions, but others are popular in character and are widely distributed. 
 The series of brief farmers' bulletins is largely distributed by congress- 
 men and thus is sent into all the rural districts. Over 9,000,000 
 copies of farmers' bulletins are distributed annually. The "Yearbook," 
 a bound volume of about seven hundred pages, has an edition of 
 500,000 copies. 
 
 The Department publishes summaries of its own publications, those 
 of the state experiment stations, and all other literature of agricul- 
 tural science published throughout the world in the journal entitled 
 "Experiment Station Record." This is sent to numerous institutions 
 and scientists and may be found in hundreds of libraries in this 
 country and abroad. The Department library contains about 120,000 
 books and pamphlets, chiefly on agricultural subjects, and currently 
 receives nearly two thousand periodicals. 
 
 The officers of the Department deliver numerous lectures before 
 farmers' institutes, agricultural, scientific and other organizations in 
 all parts of the country. A vast amount of information is also dis- 
 tributed by correspondence and through the agricultural and general 
 press. 
 
 The Department, however, is not content with distributing agri- 
 cultural information, but goes further than this and directly promotes 
 agricultural education throughout the United States. It does this 
 because it believes that in the long run the permanent prosperity of 
 our agriculture and the highest welfare of our rural people, as well 
 as of the whole Nation, will depend on the trained ability of our 
 farmers and their families to make the best use of our lands and to 
 maintain well organized rural communities. 
 
 The Office of Experiment Stations is especially charged with the 
 educational business of the Department, but the other bureaus are also 
 doing much to promote this cause. The work is largely done in co- 
 operation with the United States Bureau of Education, the Association of 
 American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, and the state 
 departments of education and agriculture. The general purpose Is to 
 collect and distribute Information regarding the progress of agri- 
 cultural education throughout the world, to study the agricultural 
 and pedagogical requirements of a modern educational system for 
 rural people, to aid the several states In broadening and redirecting 
 
11 
 
 *^.!*i5 1^°^^ system to meet these requirements, to supply the schools 
 with the knowledge accumulated by the Department and the ex- 
 periment stations which can be utilized to make their courses in 
 agriculture and home economics more satisfactory and effective, and 
 to carry on propaganda, as far as may be necessary, among our rural 
 people, in the interests of improved methods of education. 
 
 This work is done partly through publications, but more largely 
 by public addresses and conferences with educational and agricultural 
 leaders in the several states. It covers broadly the work of the agri- 
 cultural colleges, secondary and elementary schools, farmers' insti- 
 tutes and other forms of extension work. The Bureau of Plant In- 
 dustry is contributing largely to this latter phase of the educational 
 movement by distributing seeds for school, gardens and by forming 
 boys' and girls' clubs for the growing of corn, canning of tomatoes, 
 etc., in cooperation with the public schools In the South. 
 
 As perhaps a natural outgrowth of its functions relating to the 
 industry which is most fundamental to human life and civilization, 
 the Department has taken on an increasing amount of work outside 
 the field of agriculture. Such, for example, is a large part of the 
 work of the Weather Btireau, the inspection of drugs, investigations 
 on human nutrition, studies of household and disease-causing insects, 
 biological investigations relating to human disease, etc. Part of this 
 has been given to the Department under a wise administrative policy 
 which seeks to make the most effective use of existing governmental 
 agencies and facilities instead of creating new ones. 
 
 During the quarter of a century beginning with the organization 
 of this association and the passage of the Hatch act, the Department 
 has been in close cooperation with this association and the institu- 
 tions represented therein in many enterprises. One Secretary and 
 three Assistant Secretaries have come from the agricultural colleges. 
 Numerous subordinate officers, especially in the scientific service, have 
 been drawn from these colleges, where they have either been students 
 or members of the faculty. On the other hand many Department 
 officers have gone into the faculties of the agricultural colleges. This 
 association and the Department have worked together In securing 
 the passage of the Hatch, Morrill, Adams and Nelson Acts for the 
 benefit of the colleges and stations and in many cases in aiding 
 the development of the Department. Constantly Increasing and in 
 the aggregate large amounts of department funds have gone into co- 
 operation with the colleges and stations in a great variety of enter- 
 prises. With the rapid development of the movement for the pro- 
 motion of agriculture in this country, thus far the emphasis has been 
 chiefly laid on pushing its extension through both national and state 
 agencies. Naturally questions have from time to time arisen as to 
 the wisest plan of operation of these agencies in this vast and com- 
 plicated field, but whatever outcome experience shall show is best in 
 detail, the principle of cooperation between the Nation and the States 
 has been permanently established. 
 
 Though the Department has In recent years been increasingly 
 united with the executive branch of our Government through the 
 growth of its administrative functions and the greater political Im- 
 portance of our rural affairs, some very gratifying standards and 
 traditions have been established In Its managemenj;. The Depart- 
 ment's work has been planned and conducted with reference to the 
 agricultural interests of the whole country without regard to political 
 or sectional prejudices. Entrance to the Department's service and 
 tenure of office therein have more and more been determined in ac- 
 cordance with good standards of merit. 
 
 For nearly 16 years the Department has been under the control 
 of one man and thus has had a consistent policy during an excep- 
 tionally long period. Under our system of government the Secretary 
 of Agriculture as a member of the President's cabinet will ordinarily 
 change with the administration and be closely identified with the 
 political policies of the party in power. As secretaries come and go. 
 
12 
 
 can the Department maintain and improve its standards of organiza- 
 tion and operation? Particularly as regards its scientific worlc -will 
 it be able to hold a proper academic freedom and a broad regard for 
 the truth? Will it he able to resist the pressure for speedy economic 
 results or the tyranny of conformity to official dogmas and preconceived 
 notions? In a general way these are the problems confronting all 
 government establishments in which scientific work is done. As the 
 operations of the government increase in range and complexity, it is 
 the natural tendency of Congress and executives to distrust their 
 agents and therefore to make a more and more elaborate and technical 
 scheme of laws and regulations. But this may easily become unduly 
 burdensome and restrictive. Legal and factory management of sci- 
 entific institutions is always destructive of their best interests. The 
 well-trained man free to initiate and to work according to methods 
 of his own devising will always be the essential factor in scientific 
 success. The results rather than the routine must ever be the cor- 
 rect measure of his efficiency. He must also have the freedom to 
 record and publish his work whether it agrees with that of other 
 men or fits into what at the time seems a good general plan of things. 
 The publication of apparently discordant results, when the work has 
 been honestly done, is often the best means of bringing out the 
 more complete truth. As science touches more closely the affairs 
 of men, there is increasing danger of pressure for the improper con- 
 trol of scientific investigation. 
 
 The problems of the management of national and state institutions 
 for education and research are many and great and this is not the 
 place for their discussion. I only wish to indicate that in order to 
 keep what has been gained thus far in the development of the De- 
 partment of Agriculture and to strengthen and improve its work, 
 particularly along scientific lines, it should hereafter have in some 
 respects a broader and more permanent organization so that its funda- 
 mental policies and operations will ever run in good order, whatever 
 changes in the general management of our Government the years may 
 bring. 
 
 Today we honor th^ men who thus far have guided the Depart- 
 ment's affairs and laid strong and deep the foundations for its 
 future. Their success and the present flourishing condition of the 
 Department and the Nation augur well for the continuance and im- 
 provement of the world's greatest institution for the promotion of 
 agriculture. 
 
 THE EXPERIMENT STATTONS 
 
 By H. C. White 
 
 Civilization is parted from savagery, not so much by immediate 
 achievement as by historic continuity of effort. Tlie peoples who 
 record no histories make no histories. Races which have no past 
 upon which to build have no future to which to aspire. The winnow- 
 ing of the generations is requisite to the garnering of the harvest of 
 human progress. Without tradition to impel or history to guide there 
 is no fruitful course of human events, no inspiration to human 
 progress, no safeguard to human endeavor. The foundation, in fine, 
 of human civilization is an ability to link the present to the past, 
 a capacity for tradition, the possession of an historic sense. Com- 
 memorations of past achievements, memorials of past events, tablets 
 and monuments to historic characters are, therefore, not only expres- 
 sions of appreciation, of gratitude or of honor; they are necessary 
 duties in the preservation and the advancement of our civilization. 
 In a long-established civilization it is convenient and appropriate to 
 measure our commemorations with the passing of the centuries and 
 to review our progress with recurrent anniversaries. 
 
13 
 
 Within the present year the two great American institutions, the 
 land-grant college and the agricultural experiment station, complete, 
 the one a half-century and the other a quarter-century of honorable 
 and useful existence. It is fitting and commendable that this associ- 
 ation, whose members are the present-day representatives of the two, 
 should devote a few moments at this time to a review of their 
 histories and achievements. 
 
 In speaking for the experiment stations I desire, at the outset, 
 to acknowledge my indebtedness to sundry publications of the United 
 States Department of Agriculture, and notably to bulletin number 80 
 of the Oifice of Experiment Stations, for many necessary data and 
 statistics. 
 
 When Patrick Henry declared that he knew of no lamp by which 
 to guide his steps but that of experience, Jie spoke as a man of the 
 eighteenth century and those which had gone before. For untold 
 centuries individual and traditional experience was counted the safest, 
 if not the only, guide to conduct. In the great industry of agri- 
 culture, in which men had been engaged since the beginning of 
 human history, experience, in like manner, had been the school in 
 which instruction had been sought for proficiency in the art and im- 
 provement in its processes. The value of experience, surely, is not 
 to be disdained. On the contrary, it is a very efficient corrective of 
 error and men do well to maintain its historic continuity for the 
 avoidance of fault and the elimination of blunder. But, while ex- 
 perience may be a safe, it is, after all, but an unintelligent and un- 
 progressive monitor. Certainly in the case of agriculture it had 
 proven its inadequacy to progress. For it may be doubted if agri- 
 cultural practice or agricultural production in Europe in the eighteenth 
 century were in any large degree superior to those of ancient Baby- 
 lonia, Egypt, Greece or Rome. It was only when the truly scientific 
 spirit of inquiry into the causes and reasons of phenomena was loosed 
 upon the world, that conduct and practice could be based upon an 
 illuminating knowledge and no longer be guided by a blind experi- 
 ence. The closing years of the eighteenth century mark this epoch 
 in the intellectual history of the world. None of man's industries, 
 perhaps, profited so immediately, and it subsequently profited so much, 
 from this new impulse to progress, as agriculture. Chemistry, as a 
 science, dates from Lavoisier in 1792, and in 1804 Sir Humphrey 
 Davy published his treatise on the application of chemistry to agri- 
 culture. Liebig began work as a chemist in 1824 and published his 
 great classic, that was the horn-book of agricultural science for half 
 a century, in 1840. Chemistry, indeed, as it was the earliest and most 
 obvious of the natural sciences to find application to agriculture, con- 
 tinued to hold first place for many years. When biology was bom, 
 with all its lusty brood of special sciences, the way was prepared for 
 its immediate acceptance as sister hand-maid of the art. 
 
 Individual practice was, no doubt, immediately affected to ad- 
 vantage in a large number of cases of intelligent land-holders and 
 farmers by the early publications dealing with the relations of the 
 sciences to agriculture. In England and in America (which, at the 
 time, was, of course, intellectually but a part of England) — and the 
 same was largely true of other European countries — the first concerted 
 effort made to utilise the new knowledge in the labor of the fields 
 was the organization, or the utilization of those already existing, of 
 voluntary associations, such as agricultural societies and semi-official 
 bodies of kindred character. These devoted themselves largely to 
 acquiring and disseminating the knowledge that was beginning to 
 fiow from the laboratories of the men of science, and to exchange of 
 experiences in its application. Very shortly, and naturally, this led 
 to appreciation of the need for enlarged general education in the 
 sciences and their applications that their values might be more widely 
 known. Here began the modern history of agricultural schools and 
 college's, the course of which will be presented by another speaker 
 on this occasion. 
 
u 
 
 Not a few, however, of these pioneers in the founding of agri- 
 cultural practice upon assured knowledge foresaw that special fields 
 for accurate test, and special laboratories of application would be 
 required to supplement the general farm and the laboratories of the 
 chemists and the men of science. Hence arose the beginnings of 
 modem agricultural experimentation. In England it fruited early and 
 conspicuously in the establishment by private enterprise, in 1843, of 
 the great establishment at Rothamstead. This was the first notable 
 and successful specific effort to this specific end, as it was the first 
 to adopt the name of "Station" to indicate its distinctive character. 
 Primus et facile prlnceps, it continues happily to this day an endur- 
 ing memorial to the philanthropy and wisdom of its founders and 
 conductors. Sir John B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert. Meanwhile, in 
 this country, so early as 1785, the South Carolina Agricultural Society 
 provided in its organization for the establishment of an experiment 
 farm. President George Washington, in his message to Congress in 
 1796, recommending the creation of a National Board of Agriculture, 
 spoke of the conduct of experiments as among the purposes to which 
 it should extend its support. In 1839 the distribution of seeds and 
 plants by the United States government was begun through the Patent 
 Office. This was, in a sense, agricultural experimentation, although, 
 in modern usage. It comes more nearly perhaps to the definition of 
 political exploitation. In these early uses of the word "experiment" 
 it had, however, hardly Its modern significance. Events moved rapidly 
 in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1849 the New York 
 Agricultural Society established at Albany a chemical laboratory for 
 the analysis of soils, manures and farm products. In 1855 the United 
 States Patent Office employed a chemist and a botanist, conducted 
 a propagating garden and cooperated with the Smithsonian Institu- 
 tion in distributing the results of meteorological observations. For a 
 number of years after its establishment in 1862 the United States De- 
 partment of Agriculture conducted an experiment farm in coopera- 
 tion with its laboratories on grounds adjacent to its buildings in 
 Washington. The schools and colleges which were established pro- 
 viding for instruction related to agricultural practice in many cases 
 provided also for more or less of experimentation. The act estab- 
 lishing the Maryland Agricultural College In 1856 directed that 
 certain, somewhat limited, experiments should be conducted upon 
 the model farm of the college. BYom its formal dedication in 1857 
 the Michigan Agricultural College engaged somewhat In agricultural 
 experlnientation and this was made mandatory by act of the legis- 
 lature In 1861. Ctertalnly the large majority of the land-grant colleges 
 established under the Morrill act of 1862 engaged In some measure of 
 field experimentation as adjunct to the work of the class rooms. 
 Notably in Connecticut where the land-grant funds were given at first 
 to the Sheffield sclentififc school of Yale college, agricultural research 
 was begun as early as 1863. In many instances the results obtained 
 were interesting and valuable. Speaking as one of the elder brethren, 
 as of facts within my personal knowledge, I remember, for example, 
 that at the college In Georgia, a department of the State University, 
 for a number of years beginning with 1873 (we were among the 
 unfortunates in 1862 and the college was established only In 1871) 
 the schools of chemistry and agriculture cooperated In conducting 
 systematic series of experiments the results of which were reported 
 annually in addresses to the State Agricultural Society. 
 
 The first successful movement looking to the establishment of a 
 distinct organization for the prosecution of agricultural experiment 
 and research, unconnected with other duties or purposes, originated 
 in Connecticut and led to the founding of the first real agricultural 
 experiment station in America, that of Connecticut, established by 
 the legislature of that State by act approved July 2, 1875. The first 
 director was our late admired and lamented associate, Prof. W. O. 
 Atwater, to whose ability and zeal, aided by the generous coopera- 
 tion of Mr. Orange Judd, the initiative and success of the movement 
 
15 
 
 were due. Following the lead of Connecticut, North Carolina estab- 
 lished an agricultural experiment and fertilizer-control station in 1877, 
 in connection with the State University at Chapel Hill. In 1880 the 
 legislature of New Jersey established the New Jersey State station 
 at New Brunswick in connection with the scientific school of Rutgers 
 College. Other states rapidly fell into line and by 1886 distinct or- 
 ganizations — genuine experiment stations — had been established, either 
 by legislative enactment or voluntary action of the state college 
 authorities in California, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, 
 Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. An American emulator of the Eng- 
 lishmen Lawes and Gilbert arose in 1879 when Mr. Lawson Valentine 
 munificently equipped and arranged for the conduct of the Houghton 
 Farm in Orange County, New York, along lines of agricultural ex- 
 perimentation similar to those followed at Rothamstead. The enter- 
 prise ceased, however, at his death In 1888. In 1870 the Massachusetts 
 Society for the Promotion of Agriculture granted a considerable sum 
 for the distinct purposes of experiment and research at the Bussey 
 Institution, an agricultural department of Harvard College established 
 under the will of Mr. Benjamin Bussey. A series of disasters unhappily 
 befell the Institution and its work was seriously hampered for many 
 years. 
 
 The efficiency of these distinct organizations, even when inade- 
 quately endowed, and the great value of the results of their work 
 excited general interest throughout the country and led to a desire 
 for their multiplication and their support by an adequate and as- 
 sured endowment. A convention of representatives of land-grant col- 
 leges held in Washington in 1883 approved a plan for the establish- 
 ment of a station at each of the colleges by federal act carrying ap- 
 propriations for their support. A subsequent convention in 1885 of 
 representatives of the colleges and the existing state stations heartily 
 approved the proposal. Several bills to this end were presented in 
 succeeding Congresses and, finally, that Introduced by Hon. Wm. H. 
 Hatch of Missouri was enacted by the forty-ninth Congress and ap- 
 proved by President Cleveland, March 2, 1887. Thus came Into ex- 
 istence — ^just twenty-five years ago — that great arm of the public 
 service, the American agricultural experiment station. It is not need- 
 ful that I recite in this presence the terms of this familiar act. Suf- 
 fice It that the broadest latitude was authorized in the character and 
 manner of conduct of investigation and experiment, liberal provision 
 was made for the publication and dissemination of results, and an 
 annual allowance of $15,000 made to each of the states for the support 
 of Its station, the only restrictive clause limiting to a small figure 
 the amount that might be used for lands or buildings, the expectation 
 being that provision for these would be otherwise made. Unavoidable 
 delays of minor character were involved In preliminary preparation 
 and adjustment to local conditions, but before the close of 1888 the 
 stations were established and under way in all the States of the 
 Union. Did time permit, and but that it might be invidious, it would 
 be gratifying on this occasion to recall the names of those who were 
 chiefly instrumental in the great consummation. But the sentiment was 
 shared by many men in many states. Though comparatively rapid 
 the movement was strictly evolutionary and not revolutionary. After 
 a quarter of a century of existence it was inevitable that the great 
 foundations, the land-grant colleges, should have felt the imperative 
 need of the experiment stations as auxiliaries to their work and moved 
 to their creation. And the few but brilliant pioneer establishments, 
 at home and abroad, had pointed the way to their organization. 
 
 The first fifteen or twenty years of the existence of the stations 
 was a period of novitiate. A sufficient number of workers had not 
 yet been trained to man efficiently the large number of stations 
 simultaneously established. The lines of possibly useful experimenta- 
 tion that offered were so numerous that, lacking experience, it was 
 difficult to make wise selection. The true nature and functions of 
 the stations were unknown, unappreciated or misinterpreted by many 
 
16 
 
 of the communities in which they were established and, sometimes, 
 even by those charged with their administration and control. It was 
 inevitable, therefore, that there should have been more or less of 
 groping after stability and accurate consciousness of purpose. There 
 was undoubtedly much effort that was unwise, much labor that was 
 useless, much duplication that was unnecessary, much wastefulness, if 
 you please, of both energy and means. But, notwithstanding this, the 
 results which were achieved by the stations in this early period of 
 their history abundantly justified the wisdom of their establishment. 
 Investigation and experiment were prosecuted along numerous lines. 
 Ability, earnestness and energy were manifested on every hand. Errors 
 innumerable in agricultural practice were exposed; truths in great 
 numbers were demonstrated; a vast number of useful publications were 
 added to agricultural literature; and the foundations may be truthfully 
 said to have been thereby firmly laid for a really intelligent and sci- 
 entific agriculture. 
 
 As time progressed and their potential capabilities for usefulness 
 were made manifest, it became obvious to many of those connected with 
 the stations that two things were needed to insure their further utility, 
 development and growth. In the first place, their resources were in- 
 adequate to their needs. States and communities had not yet been 
 quickened to a suflficient supplementing of the initial federal grants. 
 In the second place, the time had arrived when mere experimentation 
 for the repeated corroboration of fairly well established truths should 
 largely cease and research and investigation for the acquiring of new 
 and larger truths be more extensively prosecuted. Instigated by rep- 
 resentatives of the colleges and stations, recourse was had again to the 
 Federal Congress, and the response this time was quick and full, 
 evidencing the firm hold of the experiment stations upon the confi- 
 dence and appreciation of the people and their representatives. Bear- 
 ing the name of an able and distinguished Representative from the 
 State of Wisconsin, Henry Cullen Adams, a bill was introduced in 
 the fifty-ninth Congress in December, 1905, received unanimous favor- 
 able report from committee, January 15, 1906; passed the House 
 unanimously February 15, the Senate unanimously March 12, and 
 was enacted into law by approval of President Roosevelt, March 20, 
 1906. The new act in effect doubled the federal appropriations to 
 the stations, and its terms were so drawn as to restrict their use 
 largely to genuine research. In the six years since the passage of 
 the Adams act, the work and utility of the stations have enormously 
 increased and expanded. Desultory and inconsequent experimentation 
 has been largely discontinued; definiteness in experiment work has 
 been more clearly established; and genuine scientific research along 
 all the lines of the natural sciences related to agriculture has begun. 
 A large and able body of competent investigators has been developed 
 and the quality and value of their work challenges admiring compari- 
 son with the output of the laboratories of the world devoted to pure 
 research in all the branches of biology, chemistry and physics. Through 
 the station publications and otherwise a body of new truth, demon- 
 strated or suspected, has been given immediately to the workers in 
 the fields for adoption, scrutiny or test, and, as a result, it is probably 
 true that, in America, scientific agriculture — a.nd that means intelli- 
 gent agriculture, economic agriculture — has made greater progress in 
 the last ten years than in all the years which went before. 
 
 In 1887-8, the year after the passage of the Hatch act, the sta- 
 tions expended: 
 
 From federal appropriations $585,000 
 
 From state appropriations 75,000 
 
 From other resources 50,000 
 
 Total $710,000 
 
17 
 
 In 1905-6, the. year preceding the passage of the Adams act: 
 
 From federal appropriations $960,000 
 
 Prom state appropriations 709,902 
 
 Prom other resources 347,590 
 
 Total $2,017,492 
 
 In 1910-11, the last year for which statistics are available: 
 
 Prom federal appropriations $1,440,000 
 
 Prom state appropriations 1,246,470 
 
 From other resources 975,955 
 
 Total $3,662,425 
 
 Of persons engaged in the work of the stations there were: in 
 1887-8, 400; in 1905-6, 950; in 1910-11, 1,567. It is Impossible to 
 express statistically the enormous volume and value of their work. 
 
 The history of the American agricultural experiment stations 
 would be Incomplete — the omission would be unpardonable — if with 
 It were not linked that of an organization born with the stations, 
 closely Interwoven with their labors, sympathetically directive of their 
 purposes, largely contrlbutive to their progress and always gener- 
 ously responsive to such demands for cooperation and aid as it might 
 legitimately meet, the Office of Experiment Stations of the United 
 States Department of Agriculture. Established by authority of the 
 act first making federal appropriations to the stations, wisely designed 
 as an agency for the intercommunication of the widely separated 
 organizations, as a "clearing house" for their diverse and multiple 
 activities and as unifier of their essential purposes, in the evolution 
 of the ideals which should guide their course, it has played no small, 
 part under the wise direction of Atwater, Harris and True, and par- 
 ticularly of True. 
 
 And so we celebrate today the completion of the twenty-fifth 
 year of the history of the American agricultural experiment stations. 
 We do well to contemplate with pride and satisfaction their rapid 
 growth, their sturdy development, their high character, their uni- 
 versally acknowledged usefulness and the amazing volume and diversity 
 of their activities. It cannot • be claimed that all of them have yet 
 reached the proper standard of effectiveness, in organization, in 
 direction, in quality of effort, In value of production. But I think 
 it may be truly said that in the consciousness of the greater number 
 of those connected with them a proper and effective type has been 
 evolved to which all must conform to be worthy the respect of their 
 fellows, the confidence of their communities and the good opinion 
 of the world. 
 
 So great the accomplishment, and yet so brief the time, so rapid 
 the history! It seems well-nigh marvellous that the greater part 
 of the history which I have recounted falls within the lifetime of 
 probably the youngest of us here gathered' together. It seems almost 
 unbelievable that some of us here present sat in council with all the 
 great leaders, Morrill, Cullen, Hatch and Adams, in shaping the legis- 
 lation through the operation of which so great results have come. 
 And were I permitted to call the roll of those, dead and living, the 
 directors and their fellow-workers, through whose labors, in this quarter 
 of a century these results have been accomplished, universal assent 
 would place them not only among the great men of science of the 
 world, but among the great benefactors of humanity as well. 
 
 The accepted and effective type being now assured, the course of the 
 future history of the stations would seem clearly determined. May 
 I sketch briefly the features of the type as It appears at least, to me? 
 The experiment station Is no model farm to exhibit the maximum 
 possibilities of agricultural production. It Is no demonstration plot 
 to illustrate the processes of an art. It is no teaching Institution and 
 is educational only In so far as it is a training school for Investigators 
 and searchers after Nature's hidden truths, and that It compels the 
 thought of the community in which It exists to the acknowledgment of 
 
18 
 
 the need for rigorous and patient determination of the truths which 
 may find application in their practice. It is a scientific laboratory 
 in the fullest and purest sense, given over to varied hut purely sci- 
 entific work, with fields and harns and herds ranking with microscope, 
 balance and burette as mere implements of research. It is experi- 
 mental only so far as it may test, on a strictly laboratory scale, the 
 suggestions of research. It is the investigative department of the 
 college to which it may be attached and as such may be called upon 
 only to furnish new truths to be taught in the classroom and the 
 laboratory, in the extension lecture and on the demonstration farm. 
 With this distinctive and restricted purpose the field of its operation 
 is yet ample and suflicient. For, after all, notwithstanding the many 
 things that we have learned, the many truths we have discerned, the 
 chief service of science thus far, in all our prosecutions, has been, 
 perhaps, to expose the immensity of our ignorance and to inspire to 
 faith that it may be dispelled. Something we know of photo-chemistry, 
 but which of us can tell by what process — purely mechanical and 
 chemical as we know them to be — the cotton locks the sunshine in its 
 snowy bolls or the wheat fills up with starch its bearded grain? Much 
 we have learned of physiology, but which of us can tell by what 
 processes — purely mechanical and chemical again — the plants and 
 animals shape their great products to human use? Which of us can 
 tell the manner of it and which of the well-known laws of chemistry 
 and physics — of liquid surface tension, of saline dissociation, of ionic 
 interchange, of colloidal function, of catalytic action — find place and 
 service in that complex fluid of the soil in which the rootlets of the 
 plant seek sustenance and fight their way to vigor? And of that great 
 underworld, that fascinating zone of microscopic life — of bacteria, 
 fungi, protozoa — which teems within the sod upon which we daily 
 press our feet! Its existence has been but recently discerned and 
 something we have learned of its character and functions, but how 
 immensely much remains unknown of its relations to the fertility or 
 infertility of land! We tax our fathers with unintelligent butchery 
 of the soil — that Nature's bosom which bears the ruthless scars of 
 untold centuries. Are we less subject to, the charge than they if, with 
 our superior knowledge pointing the way to the conquering of our ignor- 
 ance, we sit content, the key in our possession, and fail to read the 
 riddles that they wot not of! All these mighty processes of Nature 
 are ours to control when we shall have mastered the manner of them. 
 But we may not master until we understand. All these things we 
 ought to know; all these things we can know; they are not beyond our 
 knowledge and our comprehension. There Is no bar to fullest 
 knowledge in all these things that will not fall before earnest, per- 
 sistent intellectual attack. But the attack must be directed by the 
 thinker in his closet rather than by the workers in the fields. It may 
 be true — it probably is true — that the instruction of our colleges does 
 not, as yet, utilize in fullest measure, the body of existing knowledge. 
 Their progress lies along that line. It may be true — it certainly is 
 true — that our extension departments have not, as yet, induced all 
 the people to make useful application of the knowledge that is already 
 ours. Their progress lies in that direction. But the acquisition of 
 knowledge must precede its application and further real progress in 
 agriculture must, therefore, come not so much from improved instruc- 
 tion in the schools; not so much from increase in our extension teach- 
 ing; not from experiment in the field — valuable and important as all 
 these may be — but from research in the station laboratory. 
 
 The first quarter-century of the existence of the experiment sta- 
 tions has been a period of organization and preparation for this great 
 service. We may hope that in the years immediately to come the 
 service may be untrammeled, full and free. Strong, earnest, honest 
 men and ample means will be needed for the task, and both should be 
 provided without stint. Intellectual ability of the highest order 
 will be required and the training of the colleges and stations should 
 look to contentment with nothing less. College authorities, directors. 
 
19 
 
 administrators, and all patriotic citizens should hold aloft the ideal 
 of the station in their communities and, by wise and tactful persuasion, 
 bring public opinion in the several states to appreciation of the sta- 
 tion's real worth and purposes; to willing provision for financial needs; 
 to respect for the quiet, unostentatious labor of the investigator, and 
 to faith, possessed in patience, in the supreme value of the acquisi- 
 tions which are sought. For, with the station, stands or falls our 
 economic progress. 
 
 And yet a greater service may the station render to the State. 
 Among all the public institutions, it should stand pre-eminently to 
 illustrate the persistent, unwavering search for truth. No small asset 
 this for a righteous and freedom-loving people. No minor depart- 
 ment this of a great collegiate institution. For it is the search after 
 truth that is the basis of moral training and it is the possession of 
 truth that alone shall make us free. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE MORRIIX, ACT UPON AMERICAN 
 HIGHER EDUCATION 
 
 By "W. O. Thompson 
 
 The theme of this paper in the light of the semi-centennial morn- 
 ing program does not require an extensive or critical study of the 
 legislative foundation of the Morrill act, nor does it require that much 
 attention shall be given to the legal history underlying the move- 
 ment represented in the colleges whose foundation was in the Morrill 
 act. Nevertheless the fact that the act was passed but vetoed by the 
 President of the United States, and subsequently passed and signed, 
 and thus made a law, would suggest that probably the underlying 
 objections as set out both in the debates in Congress and in the 
 presidential veto, would throw some light upon the effect of this 
 legislation upon American higher education. I shall, therefore, pass 
 in rapid review at the outset some of the essential and characteristic 
 features of the debates concerning the passage of this measure. 
 
 The bill was first passed in the House by a vote of 105 to 100 on 
 April 22, 1858, being the first session of the thirty-fifth Congress. Dur- 
 ing the second session of this Congress, on February 7, 1859, the bill 
 passed in the Senate by a vote of 25 to 22. Nine days later the 
 House agreed to the Senate amendments to the bill. On February 24, 
 1859, President Buchanan sent his veto to the House of Representa- 
 tives. In this veto there were a number of arguments: 
 
 First: The inopportuneness of the time in view of the depleted 
 condition of the treasury. 
 
 Second: The effect feared on the relations between the Federal 
 and State Governments, it being argued that this grant of lands was 
 the exercise of a power outside of the expressly enumerated powers 
 delegated to Congress. 
 
 Third: The danger of injury to the new states on the ground that 
 speculators would control large grants of land. 
 
 Fourth: A doubt whether the bill would contribute to the ad- 
 vancement of agriculture and mechanic arts, a doubt based on the 
 theory that the Federal Government had no constitutional power to 
 follow the grant into the states and to enforce the application of the 
 funds to the intended objects: that as a matter of fact the State would 
 lose control over the gift after having made it. 
 
 Fifth: The interference which the operations of the bill would 
 be likely to bring about with existing colleges in the different states, 
 in many of which agriculture was taught as a science, and in all of 
 which it ought to be so taught; the familiar arguments of paralleling 
 and paralyzing existing institutions which we have heard in the present 
 generation. 
 
20 
 
 sixth: A doubt as to the power of Congress under the constitu- 
 tion to make a donation of public lands for the purpose of educating 
 the people of the several states. 
 
 It was alBrmed In the veto message as undeniable that Congress 
 did not possess the power to appropriate money In the treasury, raised 
 by taxation, for the purpose of educating the people of the several 
 states. It was urged that to do so would break down the constitutional 
 barriers beween the Federal Government and the several states. In- 
 deed, it was urged as a step toward the actual consolidation of these 
 two governments. It was further argued that to do the same thing 
 by indirection, that is by a grant of land, was unconstitutional. The 
 fact that Congress had made grants of land prior to this time for a 
 variety of purposes was adroitly argued as being upon a different 
 basis from the proposed measure. 
 
 In the report from the committee on public lands, April 15, 1858. 
 the bill was not recommended for passage. It was strongly urged 
 that the proceeds of the public domain could be devoted to no pur- 
 pose forbidden to the money of the Federal Government, and that if 
 Congress impaired the value of the public domain, or failed to receive 
 compensation therefor, it would be faithless to its trust. The con- 
 ception of the government as a land-holder seemed to carry with it 
 the conclusion that the right to dispose of the public lands did not 
 carry with it the right to donate them. The public domain was held 
 to be a source of revenue on which the Nation must rely in times of 
 emergency. The minority report submitted at the same time took 
 Issue on all these points, called attention to the governmental support 
 of agricultural institutions in Europe, and to the movement already 
 begun in some of the states, and undertook to show that the land 
 grants already made were not different in principle from the one 
 proposed. 
 
 The speech of Mr. Morrill, April 20, 1858, in support of his bill, 
 covered practically all the points in the subsequent discussion in 
 addition to giving a general review of agricultural conditions in the 
 country as a basis of the appeal to Congress. The reply of Mr. Morrill 
 to the presidential veto, is, in the light of history, a pretty complete 
 answer to all the constitutional questions raised, either In the debates 
 of Congress or in the veto. The only point that is now to be kept in 
 mind, as we recall this history, is, that there was common consent 
 concerning the propriety of the land grant act, donating public lands 
 for the foundation of higher education other than agricultural edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The fears expressed that the proposed granting of public lands 
 would open the way for further aid on the part of Congress to ele- 
 mentary education were interesting prophecies. Just now there is In 
 the public mind the question raised whether federal aid to general 
 education is constitutional or has a precedent. The fact that in the 
 second Morrill act of 1890 certain restrictions were made as to the 
 use of the funds, may be construed as congressional caution looking 
 toward a closer application of the funds arising from this act to the 
 purposes originally intended. These restrictions, however, could 
 hardly be urged against the general policy of federal aid to education 
 since they were for the obvious purpose of Increasing the government's 
 part in the type of education represented in the land grant colleges. 
 The opinion is here expressed that the discussions of the future will 
 not regard the principles embodied in the Morrill act as antagonistic 
 to the further and wider use of federal funds to the support and 
 endowment of education. On the other hand, adequate provision being 
 made for Industrial education, the way to a generous support of 
 other types of education will be all the clearer. 
 
 A second line of preparation for estimating the influence of the 
 Morrill act may be suggested from the public sentiment revealed in the 
 activities prior to its passage. President James of Illinois has called 
 attention to the activity of Professor Jonathan B. Turner of Jackson- 
 ville, Illinois, and to the support he received in the various agricul- 
 
21 
 
 tural gatherings in that State. It is very evident that throughout 
 the State of Illinois in the early fifties sentiment was rapidly crystalliz- 
 ing in favor of agricultural education. 
 
 In the patent office report for 1850, page 145, may be found a re- 
 port on agricultural education made by Honorable Marshall P. Wilder, 
 chairman of a board of commissioners appointed by the legislature of 
 Massachusetts. This report gives an admirable account of agricul- 
 tural education in Europe and outlines the courses of study then in 
 use, together with some description of the equipment of the institu- 
 tions for teaching. 
 
 In the patent office report for 1851, page 37, is found Professor 
 Turner's plan for an industrial university and other papers from dif- 
 ferent sources upon the same subject; one by Milton P. Braman of 
 Essex county, Massachusetts, and another by Harvey Dodge of Wor- 
 cester country, Massachusetts. This aroused public sentiment as ex- 
 pressed in farmers' conventions, the agricultural press and ofBcial 
 documents, and furnished a basis on which the appeal for the land grant 
 act was made. These documents all show a certain singleness of pur- 
 pose and desire. There was no disposition to criticise the adequacy 
 of existing education for the purpose it served, but a growing con- 
 viction that it did not meet the need of the farmer. The conviction 
 steadily grew that something new was needed which should meet a need 
 not recognized in the older forms and types of education. The efforts 
 in Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, and at Farmers' College in 
 Ohio to organize schools were the early expressions of this desire. 
 An examination oi the agricultural reports in Ohio shows the same 
 sentiment revealed elsewhere, when some leader rose to the occasion 
 and expounded the gospel of agricultural education as the basis of a 
 better agriculture. 
 
 These preliminary movements and the sentiment developed thereby 
 prepared the way for a cordial reception of the Morrill act. I have 
 been not a little surprised in running through the agricultural reports 
 of Ohio to find that from practically every part of the State there came 
 enthusiastic commendation in 1862 of the Morrill act and the unani- 
 mous sentiment that something ought to be done to take advantage 
 of these provisions. The discussions as to the methods are not so 
 enlightening but our main interest this morning lies in the fact that 
 in the great agricultural states this movement was born and cherished 
 among the most progressive and prosperous farmers in their several 
 communities. It marks the separation of the farmers from the theory 
 that the old time allegiance to the three R's formed a sufficient edu- 
 cation for the practical man. The land grant act, therefore, may, as 
 I believe, be credited with having developed a pronounced sentiment 
 in favor of what was termed a practical education. This fact has 
 modified every teacher's views on education from 1850 to the present 
 day. As is well known, Mr. Morrill had practically failed to secure 
 recognition in the House for this measure. The second time Senator 
 B. F. Wade, of Ohio, introduced the measure in the Senate and suc- 
 ceeded in passing it by a vote of 32 to 7 and thus enabled Mr. Morrill 
 when the measure came over to the House, to avoid the delay of com- 
 mittee reports by Insisting on immediate action. 
 
 The relation of Senator Wade to this measure has not been gen- 
 erally emphasized, but from what I can learn his interest in this 
 measure was as much stimulated by the sentiment among Ohio farmers 
 referred to above as by any other factor. 
 
 This sentiment, amounting practically to public clamor, produced 
 a marked influence upon legislative sentiment. One man from Cal- 
 ifornia declared that he had set aside his own judgment and would 
 vote for the measure because the agricultural sentiment expressed 
 through the legislature of California demanded it. The point I wish 
 to insist upon therefore, is that this new educational reform sprang, 
 not from the educational philosophers or the professional teachers, but 
 from the rank and file of the people themselves. Professor Townshend 
 in Ohio and Professor Turner in Illinois were prophets who had a vision 
 
22 
 
 of the needs of the plain people and they were endowed with the in- 
 telligence and the courage to express it. They are types of the same 
 kind of leadership in other commonwealths. The fact that Michigan 
 in its constitution had provided for an agricultural college was due, 
 like these other movements, to a proper regard for the sentiment of the 
 agricultural population. 
 
 A third line of preparation in estimating the importance of this 
 general movement will be found in the characteristic features of that 
 period of the century. For our starting point we may suggest that 
 the "Origin of Species" by Darwin was published in 1859, three years 
 before the passage of the land grant act. This may be taken as the 
 beginning of a revolution in the thinking and the education in 
 America. Naturally it found its enthusiasm in many of the sciences 
 related to agriculture such as botany, zoology, not to speak of others. 
 Both plant and animal life were now studied from the standpoint of 
 the evolutionary hypothesis. 
 
 The colleges of agriculture dealing in a practical way with both 
 plant and animal life were the natural homes of the new order of 
 scientific thinking and instruction. The intellectual awakening that 
 came found expression in the increased devotion to scientific study 
 and to philosophic thinking. When the civil war had closed the whole 
 country turned anew to fortune building, institution building and the 
 development of education. From this period is marked the wonderful 
 development of our public school system, of the endowment of col- 
 leges and the rapid increase of students. 
 
 Manufacturing enterprises, the development of the great West, the 
 rehabilitation of the South and the wonderful progress of the country 
 marked a movement that has not yet been seriously retarded. It 
 would not be fair to assume that any one factor should have the 
 exclusive credit for its influence in the development and achievements 
 of this half century. With due regard for all other agencies that 
 have made contributions to this growth, it is desired now to point 
 out that the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts were at the 
 very beginning in this progressive movement. Many of them have 
 been developed into large and prosperous state universities, while in 
 other instances they have been developed into large and important col- 
 leges with state universities under a different management. It is 
 doubtless true that no state university has been uninfluenced by the 
 agricultural college in its State. A most direct influence, of course, 
 would be in those universities where the agricultural college is one of 
 the component parts of the state's higher education. 
 
 The development of the experiment station in the full tide of the 
 nation's prosperity, came in response to the demand for research 
 work and for a basis of fact scientifically attested, which would be 
 the foundation, not only of instruction in the college but of improved 
 methods on the farm. The accelerated progress in these colleges from 
 the date of the Hatch act is too obvious to call for explanatory comment. 
 
 When we bring to mind the fact that in every State in the Union 
 these colleges and experiment stations were centers of scientific ex- 
 periment and laboratory instruction, it will be recognized at once that 
 they constituted a great national movement in the interest of both 
 science and education. It was during the upgrowth of these insti- 
 tutions, that the educational world was revolutionized as to school 
 programs, the contents of courses of study and as to the place of the 
 elective system in higher education. Science had its struggle for 
 recognition in every school program in the country. The colleges of 
 agriculture recognized from the start that they were to teach the sci- 
 ences related to agriculture and mechanic arts. Applied science was 
 therefore required by the very terms of the law, but obviously applied 
 science must follow pure science. The colleges of agriculture and the 
 experiment stations therefore were the hospitable homes of every 
 question related to either pure or applied science. The state uni- 
 versities having these colleges within them were, by virtue of that 
 fact, forced into a freedom hitherto unknown in higher education. 
 
28 
 
 This attitude toward science steadily influenceji the attitude toward 
 every other subject properly within the horizon of the university. 
 Under the general title of mechanic arts came all the varieties of engi- 
 neering education and under the title of agriculture came all the 
 sciences pertaining to the farm and the home. 
 
 The modern state university, therefore, found itself free to teach 
 in every field of human inquiry and to investigate any subject yielding 
 knowledge. The relation of education to the industries and pursuits 
 of life is a little more concrete than the somewhat indefinite state- 
 ment, education as related to life. These colleges had their sphere 
 suggested by the terms of the statute and other institutions are now 
 trying to interpret their mission in harmony with the same practical 
 end. We are apt not to estimate the strength of this movement until 
 we recall that this association brings within its membership the 
 largest body of teachers and students engaged in and devoted to pure 
 and appliced science in America today. If we add to this association 
 the state universities that are separated from the land grant colleges 
 we could say at once that this movement is the great national move- 
 ment in the interest of industrial, scientific and vocational education. 
 It is not necessary to infer or intimate any lack of appreciation of 
 the splendid service rendered by some of our oldest and most dis- 
 tinguished institutions of learning, but it is only true to the fact to 
 say that the land grant act represents the one great national move- 
 ment and the most unified body of scientific investigators and teachers 
 in American education. It has taken some persons a long while to 
 appreciate the value of these services and there is some evidence 
 that a' few will die without discovering it. The fact that these in- 
 stitutions have emphasized the economic phases of science has dis- 
 turbed a great many people, while others are coming to see that the 
 application of science is the first step toward that fundamental con- 
 servation which underlies the perpetual prosperity of the country. 
 
 In offering these suggestions it may be proper to emphasize the 
 fact that the land grant colleges were intended to reach the industrial 
 classes, that is to say, the common people. They were not intended 
 to exclude any others but most definitely determined to include the 
 child of the farmer and the American artisan. This, of course, is a 
 characteristic difference, so characteristic Indeed as to set off for the 
 time being a definite type of education. Recently at the inauguration 
 of a New England college president, the following statement was 
 made: "Now a new American ideal has arisen in the state universities 
 of the West, then as now inchoate, heterogeneous, sprawling, but show- 
 ing the world for the first time In history the spectacle of an entire 
 people striving to give itself a higher education, proclaiming that 
 the studies which in other lands and other centuries were the luxuries 
 of the few have now become the necessities of the entire democracy. 
 The Amherst idea is distinctly different and we honor Amherst be- 
 cause she dares to be true to her convictions and her history. She 
 declines to be heterogeneous; she does not aim to teach all knowledge 
 to all men; she conceives her task rather to teach the essential things 
 
 to prepared men." , „ ^,_ ^ .i. . . .^ 
 
 I do not quote this paragraph for the purpose of criticising it 
 adversely, but for the purpose of calling attention to the fact that the 
 state education does differ in that which Is called in this paragraph 
 the American ideal. It may be observed also that the difference lies 
 In the fact that the Amherst idea is to teach the essentials to prei- 
 pared men while the American Ideal is to teach all knowledge to all 
 
 It is easy to see that the idea of intellectual aristocracy would 
 find less welcome in a state institution than anywhere else. In other 
 words we may say that the land grant colleges, being at the center 
 of industrial education and antedating any important movement of 
 that sort in this country, have been a great force to democratize 
 American education, and that they never could be true to their 
 foundation principles if they represented anything else. In the 
 
24 
 
 writer's opinion this Is a fundamental reason why the land grant col- 
 leges will never find a bed of roses underneath the shadowing pro- 
 tection of a corporation. They have been founded, supported and 
 stimulated by the people. They must eventually look not only for 
 their support but for all their protection to the same source. The 
 standards of these institutions will be approved by the people and 
 will not be subjected to the formal requirements of any outside or- 
 ganization. Personally, I believe it to be a humiliation for any state 
 institution, and especially for any land grant college, to accept the benef- 
 icence of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 
 upon the condition that the standard or methods or anything else, 
 shall be measured by the Foundation. 
 
 I am saying these things for the purpose of emphasizing the 
 fact that democracy in education is a fundamental characteristic 
 of the land grant college and that the needs of the people are the 
 guiding spirits for the state institutions, and these two ideals have 
 practically revolutionized the education of the last fifty years. To 
 surrender these two principles would be nothing short of calamity. 
 The tendency therefore to operate an institution for the sake of main- 
 taining standards is all wrong as I see it. An institution is to be 
 operated for the good it can do; for the people it can serve; for the 
 science it can promote; and for the civilization it can advance. My 
 main contention is that the ideals of the land grant colleges are, just 
 as quoted above, essentially different from the ideals of the imported 
 education that found its organization in New England. We are deal- 
 ing with a native product, home born, home trained and we propose 
 to keep it distinctively American. The measure, therefore, of such in- 
 stitutions is always to be public service, increased eflSciency and the 
 maintenance of the best things in American life. 
 
 I do not think I go too far in saying that the close sympathy 
 between the great American public schools and the state institutions 
 is due to a common idealism and that In the last fifty years there has 
 been a steady approach to a prevailing idea in the land grant col- 
 leges; namely, that the American college should find its way to the 
 liberal education of the industrial classes. 
 
 Now it is noticeable that all other than state supiwrted institu- 
 tions have been emphasizing for the past ten years the fact of their 
 democracy and the fact that their educations should end in public serv- 
 ice. I do not regard it as an accident that these sentiments have 
 cropped out after a generation of experience with such institutions as 
 are represented in this association. I know also that the emphasis is 
 sometimes put upon the fact that the college should teach prepared men 
 for leadership, but It is also distinctly noticeable, especially through the 
 South, the West and Northwest, that the state supported institutions 
 have taken the unprepared man and made a leader of him, a leader, 
 however, who all the way through Is thoroughly democratic and 
 thoroughly American in his sympathies and in his services. 
 
 To sum up: the influences of the land grant colleges upon higher 
 education would, among other things, include the following: 
 
 First, they have greatly stimulated the Interest of the people in 
 higher education as manifested by unparalleled appropriations. I shall 
 not trouble you with the figures since it is a matter of common observa- 
 tion that the revenues provided for higher education In the several 
 states have already passed the fondest hopes and the most vivid imagina- 
 tion of the men who organized these colleges. These appropriations 
 have not been required by law, they have come by reason of popular in- 
 terest. They have been limited only by the state's ability to pro- 
 vide. They have rarely, if ever, been the occasion of popular dis- 
 content, political overthrow or corrupt management. The young men 
 and young women enjoying the benefits of these institutions have In 
 a large majority of instances justified the expenditures. The insti- 
 tutions themselves apart from the education provided for the students 
 have demonstrated their capacity for public service and have carried 
 to the people an uplifting message while frequently serving organlza- 
 
25 
 
 tions of the State in the most effective manner. This spectacle In Itself 
 has aroused the nation to a wider Interest In higher education. It 
 will be unfair to intimate that they are beyond the reach of just 
 criticism and equally unfair not to recognize the uplifting service both 
 to higher education and American life. 
 
 Second, the debates clustering about the passage of the land grant 
 act, coupled with the experience of the colleges, have set a precedent 
 and proved the wisdom of federal aid to education. The fact that 
 certain limitations have been put upon the expenditure of money 
 provided by the Federal Government is to be Interpreted as directive 
 and not as setting a limit to the Federal Government's activities. I 
 am out of sympathy with the theory that the Federal Government may 
 promote industrial or vocational education exclusively. It has been 
 urged that the public welfare clause of the constitution may be con- 
 strued to Include this type of education, the inference being that it 
 could not Include other types as well. The steady growth of the 
 Federal Government's power to secure revenues will find its complete 
 justification in the fact that a portion of these revenues may be used 
 in the cause of education for the purpose of developing a people able 
 to sustain an efficient government. 
 
 Third, the experience and history of these colleges have brought 
 industrial education to Its rightful place in the esteem of the Ameri- 
 can people and have forced its recognition by all institutions for higher 
 education. A moment's effort to recall the history of opinion concern- 
 ing the right of the State to Impose taxes upon all the people for the 
 cause of education will disclose the fact of the state's progress in 
 the scope of the state's rightful field of education. We have traveled 
 from the three R's to the complete alphabet. No one now doubts 
 the state's right to support- and maintain education any more than 
 he doubts the right of the child to enjoy it. The common schools 
 tested that question within certain limts; the land grant colleges and 
 state universities have tested It now to the limit. The state's right 
 to maintain education In all fields of study Is unquestioned. Its duty 
 Is measured only by its ability. The future, therefore, will concern 
 Itself with adjusting these public Institutions to the Immediate and 
 prospective needs of all the people. 
 
 Fourth, the land grant colleges, not exclusively to be sure but 
 efficiently, have Influenced the practical alms of higher education by 
 Insisting upon a larger liberty In the programs of education and In 
 the content of the course of study. The fact that these Institutions 
 are supported by the people has given cogency to the appeal that the 
 institutions ought in return for this support, to provide such means 
 of education as are best adapted to the progress In efficiency of 
 the youth. From necessity, therefore, these institutions have been 
 compelled to recognize the legitimate place of many subjects of study 
 not formerly recognized. 
 
 We cannot sneer at the boy being educated while wearing his 
 overalls. The chemistry laboratory cannot say to the stock judging 
 room, I have no need of thee; nor may the dairy laboratory say 
 to the physics laboratory, I have no need of you. The comradeship of 
 democracy must recognize the equality of students before the oppor- 
 tunities of the college and the final test of education will be found 
 not In the respectability of the subject studied but in the character 
 and efficiency of the student. 
 
 Fifth, these Institutions have stimulated investigation and research 
 in many fields. I shall not assume that the only Investigations In 
 applied science are to be found within the walls of the land grant 
 colleges, but It Is safe to say that these same colleges have stimulated 
 other institutions to carry their investigations into fields that might 
 have been neglected but for the sympathetic Interest aroused in agri- 
 cultural colleges and experiment stations. We may be modest In pro- 
 claiming their services to higher education but we cannot be blind 
 to the fact that very much of the investigational and. res^gjcb work of 
 
26 
 
 American higher education today finds inspiration in the achievements 
 of these institutions. 
 
 Sixth, while not specifically related to the topic of this paper, I 
 cannot refrain from suggesting that the infiuence of these colleges 
 upon the government itself has had something to do with the cause 
 of higher education. Everyone recognizes that for a hundred years we 
 have had a progressive interpretation of the constitution under which 
 we live and that the interpretation has tended steadily toward en- 
 largement of the powers of government. This enlargement has chiefly 
 been in the interest of the people. The old theory of limiting the 
 government to police powers only has been found inadequate to the 
 needs of a great people. 
 
 The public welfare clause of our constitution and other portions, 
 have been generously Interpreted In order to justify the government's 
 participation in many activities looking to the development of the 
 people and the maintenance of our resources. The fact that govern- 
 ment has become more humane, more beneficent, and almost philan- 
 thropic in many of its activities, is probably due to the humanizing 
 influences of the educational activities supported and stimulated by 
 the government. This is true I think, not only of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment but of the State Government as well. 
 
 In other words, the beneficent results of higher education cannot 
 be confined to the objects or the persons upon which they are ex- 
 pended. There is an overflow of goodness, an overflow of benefits, 
 an overflow of refinements, and these come back upon the government 
 Itself as a generous and kindly return current that softens and 
 ameliorates the harshness so often associated with strong governments. 
 
 The growth and strength, therefore, of our government is not 
 a thing to be feared but rather to be welcomed. This will always be 
 true so long as the institutions fostered and supported by the gov- 
 ernment may react, through their representatives, upon the sources 
 of authority. 
 
 I am disposed therefore to believe that the government's entrance 
 into the cause of education has resulted in making it more humane, 
 more just, less to be feared and more to be loved. I know of no 
 agency that has done more to unite the North and the South, the East 
 and the West, in a bond of common patriotism than the activities of 
 the government arising out of the organization of the Department of 
 Agriculture, the land grant colleges and the experiment stations. 
 
 The semi-centennial and the quarto-centennial of these institutions 
 seem, therefore, an appropriate time to express our appreciation of 
 what these institutions have been, of what they are becoming, of 
 what they have done, and to renew our patriotic devotion to the 
 agencies that have done so much for the uplifting and Inspiration of 
 the common people. 
 
 THE AMERICAN AGRrCULTUUAL, COLLEGE 
 
 By E. Davenport 
 
 It was fifty years ago, in the opening days of the Civil War when 
 the very existence of the Nation was in doubt, that our fathers passed 
 and Lincoln signed the land grant act, providing for the most compre- 
 hensive system of industrial education the world has ever known. It 
 is my pleasant duty to speak briefly upon one of the provisions of this 
 act — the agricultural college. I cannot hope to edify the members of 
 this association by telling them anything about this kind of a college 
 that they do not already know, but. If only for historical purposes, 
 it is fitting at this time, as we enter upon the second half-century of 
 this peculiar institution, to- analyze the situation as well as we may, 
 to take stock of its activities up to date, its present condition, and 
 its future prospects. 
 
27 
 
 The object of the American agricultural college, as repeatedly 
 stated by its early advocates and founders, was threefold: 
 
 1. To promote the business and social welfare of the farmer 
 through courses of study and by means of appropriate dealing with the 
 materials of his life and surroundings. 
 
 2. To insure the development of agriculture beyond the confines 
 of handicraft and into the field of science, not as a favor to farmers, 
 but as a matter of general and public welfare. 
 
 3. To preserve the homogeneity of the American people by mak- 
 ing it unnecessary to desert the farm and the shop in order to secure 
 the benefits and graces of education. 
 
 To realize how far these objects have been attained already, we 
 have only to look about us and note the new attitude toward farming 
 and farmers that has everywhere sprung up among all classes of 
 people, and not the least among the country people. 
 
 The sons of farmers and artisans had always been admitted freely 
 to existing institutions; but these courses without exception led into 
 professions other than those of the farm or the shop, and the opera- 
 tion of the educational system was to draw from agriculture and the 
 trades all persons ambitious of bettering their condition through edu- 
 cation. Under circumstances like these, farming and building could 
 not share in the benefits of scientific discovery and must remain 
 relatively undeveloped as proletarian industries. Clearly a new edu- 
 cation was demanded both for the development of these industries 
 and the homogeneity of our people. 
 
 Sporadic attempts at founding agricultural colleges had been made 
 at many times and places, most of them on the endowment plan; 
 but the expense of this new education, together with the lack of gen- 
 eral appreciation, led to failure wherever it had been attempted, ex- 
 cept in Michigan, where the constitution made it a state enterprise, 
 and in Pennsylvania, where the Commonwealth had assumed partial 
 though not complete responsibility. 
 
 The land grant act was a bold stroke for a national system of a 
 new education, and we of our day have no clearer conception of the 
 high purposes of that legislation than did those of that day who 
 promoted and were chiefly responsible for its passage. It is im- 
 possible to follow back to their origin the impulses that led to this 
 national step. Some of us would trace them directly to the work of 
 Turner of Illinois as fore-shadowed in his Griggsville address of 
 1850 and the joint resolution passed by the legislature of Illinois in 
 1853. Others would credit them to Morrill of Vermont, to Brewer of 
 Yale, or to some of the many other prophets who foresaw clearly the 
 need in American affairs of a new departure in education if industry 
 was to develop and democratic institutions were long to survive. 
 
 As a matter of fact, there were many men and many centers of 
 influence that contributed to the general result; and just who or what 
 was chiefly responsible for the particular form which the movement 
 finally took in the land grant act, we shall probably never know. 
 
 It is of vastly more consequence that we fully understand the 
 intent of the founders of the new education and the meaning of the 
 history that is making today, making more rapidly than can be realized 
 even by those most intimately involved. 
 
 It is now half a century since the passage of the land grant act, 
 and it is not too much to say that no event in educational history 
 is so outstanding, even startling, as the rise and development of agri- 
 cultural education; and yet a dozen years ago the casual onlooker, 
 not an enthusiast, would have recorded it all a failure, to be classed 
 in history with other dead visions of Utopian dreamers. After a gen- 
 eration of commonly acknowledged failure it must be confessed that 
 
28 
 
 the American agricultural college is an institution of the twentieth 
 century. Why this forty years of apparent failure? Why this dozen 
 years of eminent, almost spectacular, success? Which is inherent, the 
 failure or the success, and which will finally prevail? 
 
 Upon this point it is profitable to note that a visitor at Michigan 
 or Massachusetts, or at their early followers, Kansas and Iowa, would 
 have found at any time during this period an enthusiastic and serious 
 people fully convinced that the new education was certain to evangel- 
 ize the modem world; and though we have outgrown the methods 
 of those days, these institutions were true prophets indeed, and, like 
 the monasteries of the middle ages, kept the spark burning until con- 
 ditions developed that made widespread success possible. 
 
 Whatever the results from the efforts of the few institutions that 
 attacked the problem direct and single-handed, the fact remains that 
 by all rational Judgment anything like a successful realization of the 
 hopes of the founders did not appear for more than a generation, or 
 until the opening of the present century. It is profitable, perhaps 
 both to our successors and to ourselves, to review briefly the obstacles 
 that had to be overcome in realizing so simple a hope as a successful 
 agricultural college. The chief of these obstacles may be briefly out- 
 lined as follows: 
 
 OBSTACUSS TO- EABLY SUCCESS 
 
 1. It was a new departure as 'to purpose, matter, and method, and, 
 like all new enterprises, it was destined to endure many trials, tribu- 
 lations, and mistakes, even from its friends, not to mention its 
 enemies, who were both numerous and influential. 
 
 2. The public had become crystallized in its conviction that any 
 great admixture of industry and education is impossible, and they 
 were inclined to look upon the attempt as absurd, if not even un- 
 desirable. 
 
 3. The special opposition of the classicist who habitually regarded 
 anything like a general use of education as a species of desecration; 
 who in particular deplored both the matter and the method of the 
 new order as a lowering of standards and a "commercializing of edu- 
 cation," a proceeding that was assumed without discussion to compass 
 both the heights and the depths of educational transgression — the un- 
 pardonable sin of the schoolmaster. 
 
 4. The opposition of the farmer himself, who instinctively re- 
 sented what he regarded as an interference with his business on 
 the part of the book-man in assuming to teach him or his son how 
 to farm the land they had inherited from the grandfather, who was 
 popularly supposed in those days to pass down with the title to the 
 land a full measure of ability for its management. This was reason 
 enough for the opposition of the farmer; besides he had always looked 
 upon education as an avenue of escape from farming into some more 
 favored calling where his son should not be obliged to "work as hard 
 as he had worked." Thus had the hardships of the pioneer pressed 
 like iron into the soul of the farmer, who, like his neighbor, the 
 writer and cartoonist of the day, was unable to separate pioneering from 
 real farming. 
 
 5. There existed no body of teachable knowledge. Agriculture in 
 the sixties and seventies was essentially a handicraft. Land had 
 no value because it could be had anywhere for the occupancy. Fer- 
 tility was disregarded; indeed, it was a common saying that most land 
 was too rich for farming, and it was a universal conviction that the 
 soil would never wear out. Under circumstances like these the best 
 farmer was the most ambitious man with the strongest body and the 
 best "knack" of doing things. Most of these accomplishments were 
 relatively unteachable; besides, the farmer did not feel the need of 
 any help which he could not himself secure by the simple method 
 of "changing works." 
 
29 
 
 6. The greatest of all obstacles to the success of the agricultural 
 college, however, lay in the fact that science was as yet undeveloped 
 and had not begun to shed its flood of light upon agricultural practice. 
 Indeed, science itself had not yet made a respectable place in the col- 
 leges. When the land grant act was passed, even Harvard, the pioneer 
 in science in this country, taught less botany than is now taught in 
 almost any good high school. The early relation between agricul- 
 ture and science is further illustrated by the fact that in the seventies 
 the Michigan Agricultural College maintained the largest chemical 
 laboratory and gave the most instruction in chemistry of any insti- 
 tution west of Harvard. 
 
 Under these conditions the agricultural college found itself obliged 
 to direct its attention almost entirely along new lines quite counter 
 to the old; and it is not strange that in those days when one spoke 
 of the "new education," it was uncertain whether he meant agriculture 
 or science. Science in those days, like agriculture, was a byword, 
 and where it had been "introduced," it was tolerated like a poor re- 
 lation. Thus it was that the two Illegitimates grew up together, and 
 like two cripples tended mightily to prop each other up. For these 
 reasons the future historian will accord to the agricultural college a 
 large share in the early development of science in this country. 
 
 This mutual relation abided, and the fundamental need of science 
 in a teachable agriculture grew in the minds of men until it took 
 form in the establishment of the i^ational system of agricultural ex- 
 periment stations paralleling the system of colleges. In that day was 
 laid the foundation for success, and from that time forward the agri- 
 cultural college began to succeed. 
 
 7. No trained teachers existed. Most institutions vacillated for 
 their professors of agriculture (there was only one in those days) 
 between the successful farmer who could not teach and the so-called 
 scientist of the day who knew little or no farming. Technical studies 
 were postponed until the junior and senior years when the "professor 
 of agriculture" was expected to edify a group of students that had been 
 for two years under the tutelage of specialists in chemistry, botany, 
 zoology, etc.; for when once well started, science rapidly outstripped 
 its humbler brother in their early development. It is only in very 
 recent years that, through the findings of the experiment stations, it 
 has been possible for teachers really to train themselves; but from 
 now on we may reasonably hope for an Increasing proportion of well- 
 trained specialists, though it is yet with the greatest diflSculty that the 
 young teacher can find suitable graduate work in the direct line of 
 his needs. 
 
 8. Not the least of the obstacles to be overcome was the unfor- 
 tunate report, coming from nowhere but circulated everywhere, that 
 these colleges were especially successful in training young men away 
 from the farm. They were represented as attracting students under 
 the guise of instruction in agriculture, but that by example, teaching, 
 and precept, the influence was toward any occupation but farming. 
 The only color of truth for this report lay in the fact that some of 
 these early colleges, functioning both in science and in agriculture, 
 afforded about the only means of securing an adequate training for 
 the practical things of life, and they were for a little time patronized 
 for purposes of a general education. 
 
 But it was always true, and is yet, that the great mass of the 
 students of the agricultural colleges return at once to the land and 
 succeed better than their fathers succeeded. Indeed, in many a case 
 the family fortunes have been restored by such a student returning 
 in the nick of time as farming was passing from its pioneer stage into 
 that of a finished and permanent agriculture wherein the man who 
 cleared the farm and improved it could not keep up with the times. 
 
 9. Last of all obstacles worth mentioning is the fact that really 
 effective agricultural instruction has been found unexpectedly ex- 
 pensive, both as to men and materials. If it had not also become 
 popular in recent years, so that money in larger amounts than were 
 
30 
 
 ever before devoted to education was forthcoming, the enterprise 
 would surely have broken down of its own weight from sheer inability 
 to do the work required. Even yet a few institutions have not learned 
 that a complete parity in salaries throughout all departments is im- 
 possible; that teachers in agriculture cost more than do most others. 
 
 THE CtTEEICULUM 
 
 The curriculum of the agricultural college has gradually de- 
 veloped in such a way as to secure a unique blend of the vocational 
 and the non-vocational in varying proportions, but generally with 
 enough of both to turn out an eflScient busines man without sacrificing 
 his education as a citizen; indeed, today some of the most ardent dev- 
 otees of the sciences, the classics, and particularly of art, are the 
 agricultural students of the state universities. 
 
 In the enrichment of the technical side of the curriculum, wholly 
 unsuspected fields have been opened up in soil and dairy bacteriology, 
 farm mechanics, farm organization, rural sociology, the affairs of the 
 home, etc., etc. It is not too much to say that the scientific study of 
 the home, as represented in the departments of home economics, is 
 the special work of the land grant college, which is also the real 
 pioneer in coeducation, both of which modem developments are logical 
 conclusions from the proposition to establish a system of agricultural 
 education, because agriculture is both an occupation and a mode of 
 life. 
 
 THE OESANIZATION 
 
 The organization of the agricultural college taken as a whole is 
 necessarily, therefore, exceedingly complex. It provides not only for 
 professional instruction in a highly technical subject or series of sub- 
 jects, but it insures the education of a distinct class of people, both 
 men and women, not only vocationally, but non-vocationally as well. 
 On the technical side this kind of college is organized not only for 
 teaching but also for research and for extension work outside the 
 campus, so that the activities of the modern agricultural college are, 
 humanly speaking, as varied as the interests of country people, pro- 
 fessionally as broad as agriculture, and geographically as extensive 
 as the confines of the State. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENCY 
 
 The constituency of the agricultural college is the State as a 
 whole wherever agriculture touches the life of the people, either as 
 producers or as consumers. Its immediate problems lie in the country 
 and with farming people, and for their welfare and progress the 
 agricultural college feels itself especially charged. Most departments 
 of education concern themselves with the exploitation of a single 
 field of human knowledge without much regard to those who elect it, 
 but the American agricultural college is responsible for an extensive 
 association of interrelated sciences, for a great productive industry as 
 it affects both ^producer and consumer, and for the business and 
 social welfare of a mass of middle-class men and women constituting 
 at least one-third of our permanent population and having in their 
 hands practically the entire management of the lands of the Nation 
 on which must be grown the food of all people. 
 
 THE STUDENTS 
 
 The students of the modern agricultural college are a notable lot. 
 For the purposes of technical agriculture they are mostly, but not 
 by any means exclusively, men. Ten years ago they came from the 
 cornfields and the country schoolhouses with little academic prepara- 
 tion and rather hazy notions of what the college was like, and what 
 it was all about. In those days they came, for the most part, seek- 
 
31 
 
 ing a few weeks of help, and the more direct Its application to the 
 immediate needs of their home farms, the better it was received. 
 
 Today they come mainly from the high schools, for they have 
 been getting ready for the agricultural college as they would prepare 
 for any other. Statistics show now in most of our state universites 
 about as high a proportion of matriculated students, and fully as 
 high a percentage of graduates, in the agricultural college as in other 
 colleges of the same institution. 
 
 As to numbers, it would be fair to say that the Increase has been 
 at least a thousand percent in the last ten years, and sometimes more 
 — at any rate, most of the better colleges are overHowing with students, 
 and many of them are discussing the best methods of limiting at- 
 tendance — all within ten years from the time when all of us were 
 going out into the byways and hedges for students and "compelling 
 them to come in" on almost any terms. The following table, showing 
 the growth in attendance in a single institution, is typical of the col- 
 leges in general: 
 
 Students 
 
 Year registered 
 
 90-91 7 
 
 91-92 6 
 
 92-93 13 
 
 93-94 5 
 
 94-95 9 
 
 95-96 14 
 
 96-97 17 
 
 97-98 19 
 
 98-99 25 
 
 99-00 90 
 
 00-01 159 
 
 01-02 232 
 
 02-03 284 
 
 03-04 339 
 
 04-05 406 
 
 05-06 430 
 
 06-07 462 
 
 07-08 528 
 
 08-09 531 
 
 09-10 660 
 
 10-11 729 
 
 11-12 829 
 
 Graduat- 
 
 
 ing 
 
 Graduate 
 
 class 
 
 students 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 9 
 
 43 
 
 10 
 
 38 
 
 17 
 
 54 
 
 15 
 
 49 
 
 23 
 
 51 
 
 31 
 
 69 
 
 
 WHAT BECOMES OP THE GBADUATES 
 
 Statistics show that approximately 55 percent of the graduates of 
 the agricultural colleges connected with universities return to the 
 farm, and 95 percent devote themselves to agriculture in some form 
 or other Including college and station work. Of those not graduating, 
 practically all return to the land, and in both cases, failure in 
 farming is practically unknown. That the students represent real 
 landed interests is shown by the fact that in my own institution, 
 the University of Illinois, the agricultural students coming from farms 
 represent an average of 330 acres each. 
 
 The proportion of students returning to the land from colleges 
 not connected with universities is somewhat less, but a direct com- 
 parison would be unfair, owing to the fact that in separate agri- 
 cultural colleges the course is utilized to a greater extent than in a 
 university for general educational purposes. But even this fact is 
 not to be interpreted as meaning that the Influence of such a college 
 is away from the land; indeed, facts show the opposite conclusion, 
 namely, that many entering for other purposes are drawn into 
 agriculture during the progress of their course. 
 
32 
 
 Another notable fact about agricultural students of the present 
 day is that a very large percentage come from citieg, not ■with a view 
 of teaching agriculture, but of going upon the land to practice farm- 
 ing. The other notable fact is that they succeed in their determina- 
 tion, offsetting their ignorance of the handicraft by their love for 
 country life and its affairs. The extent to which young men from the 
 city are availing themselves of the agricultural course as an avenue 
 into the country is illustrated by the fact that twelve percent of 
 the agricultural students in the University of Illinois come from the 
 city of Chicago and thirty percent come from cities of five thousand 
 or more outside of Chicago. 
 
 SCHOLARSHIP STANDARDS 
 
 It was commonly held in the beginning that the standards of 
 scholarship which a state institution might be able to maintain would 
 of necessity be low, because of the obligation of the State to serve 
 its citizens, not on its own terms but on theirs. 
 
 Such is not proving to be the case. In all institutions charging 
 tuition, a student is a financial asset, and to that extent is essential 
 to maintenance. In a state institution, however, charging no tuition, 
 a student Is a bill of expense costing anywhere from two hundred to 
 three hundred dollars a year for his instruction. 
 
 As numbers increase, laboratories become crowded, institutions 
 find it difficult to meet the demand for instruction, and nothing is 
 more natural than to gain room and save expense by one stroke in 
 eliminating the unprofitable student, all of which mechanically oper- 
 ates to the raising of standards. 
 
 The conditions upon which students may remain and become 
 candidates for upper-class instruction makes more difference with 
 educational standards than does the mere matter of admission, though 
 in general the state institutions now admit to undergraduate work 
 upon the same basis as other universities. 
 
 In graduate work the agricultural college is again an exponent 
 of high standards. Whatever departments in language or mathe- 
 matics may choose to do in admitting to graduate work men whose 
 first degree is not up to standard, the expense of conducting gradu- 
 ate work in agriculture, both as to materials and instruction, makes 
 it imperative that only the best students be admitted, and then only 
 when well prepared. In this way a given institution is practically 
 forced to require the equivalent of its own undergraduate degree, 
 or else it finds its graduate facilities overrun with students that 
 otherwise would rank as seniors or possibly as juniors only. 
 
 EFFECT UPON EDUCATI0^TAI, IDKALS 
 
 Nothing was more natural than that the agricultural college 
 should in general develop into a state university, the Commonwealth 
 supplementing from its own funds the several grants from the Federal 
 Government. Where this has occurred the entire institution has par- 
 taken of the Initial purpose of the agricultural and mechanical col- 
 lege; namely, to serve the State by developing every subject of in- 
 terest and value to a highly civilized Commonwealth, in which in- 
 struction to students is an incident to the general purpose, a means 
 to an end, which is the development of the State. To this end, re- 
 search, and extension work are recognized as equally important with 
 undergraduate or even with graduate instruction. 
 
 What is also notable In this connection is that the public' high 
 school is rapidly shaping its ideals after those of the state university; 
 namely, community service rather than the older Ideal of learning 
 for learning's sake. Already secondary schools have introduced from 
 one to four years' work in agriculture, occupying a full fourth of 
 the student's time under a special teacher. The same is true of 
 
33 
 
 home economics, and most state universities accept both subjects for 
 entrance. . . ' 
 
 In these many and various ways the American agricultural 
 college with its sister institute, the engineering college, has exerted 
 a most profound and far-reaching influence upon American educa- 
 tional ideals and purposes. The fundamental notion of racial develop- 
 ment and advancing civilization as a whole has been brought forward 
 as the great purpose of education; and well-developed industrial oc- 
 cupations are recognized as powerful agencies to that end. 
 
 THE OUTLOOK 
 
 The outlook is for the most part exceedingly bright. Attendance 
 of well-prepared and earnest students is now assured. Agriculture 
 has become, thanks to the experiment station, a well recognized 
 university subject of high Standing. Financial support is certain to 
 continue, even to increase as long as the colleges continue to fulfill 
 the promises so abundantly made. 
 
 Spectacular methods and superficial ideals are rapidly being re- 
 pudiated alike by students, faculty, and farmers. Teachers and in- 
 vestigators are preparing themselves better year by year, and most 
 of the younger men are planning for or engaged in that extended 
 study which will in due process of time earn them the doctor's 
 degree — and this too without losing sight of the real problems of the 
 farm. We seem to have passed the danger of developing within 
 the range of agriculture a kind of abstract science with but little real 
 reference to the farm, as we have also passed the day of dogmatic 
 assertion and empirical methods. In all these respects the future 
 prospect is all that could be desired. 
 
 Congress left optional with the states whether the agricultural 
 college should be developed alone or In connection with a university. 
 As a matter of fact, both methods were followed in the various states. 
 For a generation the only real success attended the colleges discon- 
 nected from other forms of education. It could not well be otherwise 
 under the conditions then prevailing, and all honor and credit are 
 due to those worthy pioneers who so ably nourished this new idea Into 
 robust health and strength. Except for them its development would 
 have been slow and long delayed. If, indeed. It had not been crushed 
 out entirely. 
 
 But with changing conditions, results are different. Instead of 
 the agricultural colleges of the universities being empty or filled 
 only with a few winter students facetiously known as shorthorns, 
 they are now overrun with a body of well-prepared young people. 
 Now that agriculture Is accepted as a good university subject. It has 
 all the advantages of any other subject, and Its students profit much 
 by the larger curriculum, the broader associations, and the wider 
 election privileges of the university. 
 
 All things considered, at the present moment the advantage is 
 with the college which Is a part of a good state university, permeated 
 by what are essentially its own ideals, and with a practically unlimited 
 range of subjects and interests represented on Its campus by nearly 
 all classes of educated people. Whether this advantage is to remain 
 with the universities no one can tell; but unfortunate for both classes 
 of Institutions, and for education in general, as well as for the State 
 that Is Involved, Is the contest that Is now developing In certain 
 quarters, whereby there is danger that the agricultural college in 
 one place and the university in another will come to a trial of strength, 
 or else settle down to a condition of armed neutrality certain to 
 work mutual injury and to check development In the State. Haply 
 some amicable solution may speedily be found that will Insure the 
 Interests of education In all its forms. 
 
 The darkest cloud that menaces the fortune of the agricultural 
 college, and particularly of the experiment station, is looming up from 
 a totally unexpected quarter. I refer to the tendency, in several 
 
34 
 
 states, and rapidly spreading to others, to class the state university 
 or agricultural college with the penal and charitable Institutions, not 
 because the prisons and asylums can really contribute anything of 
 value to an educational organization, but only because they happen 
 all to be public "institutions." The effect of this class of legisla- 
 tion is practically to take the management of the college and sta- 
 tion out of the hands of its legally constituted authority — the board 
 of trustees — and turn it over to the various commissions and clerk- 
 ships, filled not with elected but with appointed officers, working 
 for a fraction of the salary paid the people whom they overrule and 
 whose work they render largely abortive. 
 
 The result is to set in operation influences that, If continued, 
 are certain gradually but completely to undermine the agricultural 
 colleges and experiment stations, pervert their funds, injure their 
 work, and in every way effectually prevent them from becoming what 
 the people and the tax payers expect them to be; namely, economically 
 managed and strictly first-class public service institutions of learn- 
 ing and research. These obstructions, all artificial and all the re- 
 sult of restrictive legislation, may be briefly outlined as follows: 
 
 1. Laws that permit boards of prison industry to manufacture 
 what they please by convict labor and sell it to the college or station 
 at their own price regardless of quality, workmanship, or design. 
 This is done under the fiction that it affords work for convicts 
 "without competition with free labor," a fiction the fallacy of which is 
 perfectly apparent to every thinking man; for if the college buys a 
 desk of the prison, it buys one less of the furniture house. Inci- 
 dentally it enables the prison boards to report large profits to the 
 State, while tlie educational institutions are rebuilding in their own 
 shops most of the furniture which they were compelled to buy at 
 retail prices or above. 
 
 The same laws enable the prison board to print all the literature 
 of the educational institutions unless released at the discretion of the 
 board. The college or station is powerless except to petition and 
 protest. The effect of these laws is not only to exploit the college 
 and station financially for the benefit of penal institutions, but it 
 obstructs and injures their work, besides making them ridiculous 
 in the educational and scientific world both at home and abroad. 
 
 2. The second obstruction to progress is the law that takes away 
 from the trustees and the faculty or staff the power of selecting suit- 
 able employees for the farms, offices, and laboratories, and fills all 
 places in serial order out of a classified list in the hands of an 
 outside commission often many miles away, ignorant of and some- 
 times indifferent to the real needs of the institution. Moreover, such 
 a commission, generally unable actually to furnish skilled employees, 
 does not hesitate to order away from the college or station and 
 to send to another institution even the men who had been selected 
 and trained by the college or experiment station before the law went 
 into effect. 
 
 This law strikes at the very heart of good business principles 
 and efficient organization; and yet when the college or station pro- 
 tests, it is rebuffed in ways that betray a savage disposition quite 
 indifferent, even antagonistic, to the good work of the institutions. 
 Now this new attitude toward the agricultural college represents not 
 the farmers and taxpayers, but rather the accident of political con- 
 trol whereby men inexperienced in either education or research employ 
 official authority to force these colleges into an artificial mold, some- 
 times to the exploitation of their funds, and always to the detriment 
 of their work. In cases not a few, I regret to be compelled to say, 
 the motive is clearly a division of the spoils, as these positions seem 
 to be regarded; a disposition well illustrated in our federal scientific 
 bureaus afflicted in the same way by laws which require clerkships 
 and scientific assistants to be appointed from the various states in 
 proportion to their respective populations. 
 
35 
 
 The third obstacle to getting things done grows out of the multi- 
 tude of laws, decisions, rulings, and opinions that arise from the 
 conditions already outlined. None of them Is intended to be help- 
 ful. All are designed to be restrictive. A law, decision, ruling, or 
 opinion once made in public matters is almost never set aside, but 
 stands indefinitely as a precedent; and in good time there accumulates 
 a mass of this oflSce junk, technically known as red tape, that makes 
 it .almost impossible to do business at all, and entirely beyond mortal 
 powers to transact it either with economy or with dispatch. 
 
 This situation is rapidly crystallizing. If left unchecked, it is 
 not only certain to prevent these institutions from developing in the 
 same class with privately endowed colleges and universities, but it 
 will ultimately destroy them. Besides all other considerations, this 
 atmosphere is not the atmosphere in which to educate American 
 citizens. It inclines them to easy money in public service where 
 nothing gets done in the best way and where most employees under- 
 stand that their business is to obstruct by finding ways and means 
 by which things cannot be done. 
 
 When these conditions become well established, business can be 
 done only by roundabout and devious ways, and sometimes not at 
 all; so that people honestly trying to discharge their duties are liv- 
 ing literally in the shadow of the penitentiary. The natural result is 
 that, giving up all hope of economy or dispatch in business, the 
 people in the public service settle back resigned to what they are 
 powerless to prevent. If I am credibly informed, some of the work 
 of the scientific bureaus at Washington, where these conditions are 
 of older standing, has come to an absolute standstill, not for lack 
 of money or men, but because the accumulation of laws, decisions, 
 rulings, and opinions, overlapping and intercrossing, has effectively 
 closed all openings and completely blocked the investigations. 
 
 No business could run a month under such restrictions. Neither 
 can educational institutions develop. Imagine Harvard buying prison- 
 made equipment! Think of Kothamsted reports printed under the 
 law at the nearest penitentiary! Conceive of the Carnegie Institu- 
 tion for Research working under a civil service commission! Har- 
 vard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Berlin were not de- 
 veloped that way, nor will any great educational institution live 
 long under restrictions such as these. If our colleges and stations 
 are to be compared with leading institutions for education and re- 
 search, they must be left free to develop along natural lines and 
 safe from outside Interference or exploitation. 
 
 We are gradually and rapidly solving the problems and difficulties 
 inherent in college and station work, but we are powerless to prevent 
 legalized piracy and systematic inefficiency except by going to the 
 source of trouble which is the lawmaking powers, and there in- 
 sisting that those institutions organized and supported for purposes 
 of education and research shall be permitted to do their work under 
 control of their legally constituted authorities, the boards of trustees, 
 and that these trustees shall be overruled by no outside board, com- 
 mission, or clerkship. 
 
 EXTENSION WORK 
 
 The college and its sister institution, the experiment station were 
 organized for instruction and research respectively. The results of 
 thlfr iXrs in conjunction with many other economic and social in- 
 fluenced hive created a public interest in agriculture that extends to 
 oi7 M^ses of people, demanding the greatest extent and variety of 
 Service outside the institution. The old-time farmers' institute is 
 living Place to the college extension service, and that m turn, almost 
 before its complete organization, is merging into a national system 
 of resident specialists with approximately one for each county. To 
 forward this work state and federal legislation is invoked m sums 
 unheard of before and far exceeding those devoted to the college 
 
and station work proper. Not only this, but private enterprise, com- 
 mercial bodies, bankers' and manufacturers' associations are all com- 
 ing forward with funds and new plans for the college to carry out. 
 
 This call is more than the college can meet; for its limitations 
 are those of the human beings that compose it, and even now they 
 carry on the increasing work of the colleges only with the greatest 
 difficulty and with many breakdowns due to overwork. 
 
 This almost abnormal demand for activity in agriculture, added 
 to its rapid introduction into small colleges and the public high school 
 system, calls for a mass of capable men that do not exist and that 
 can be trained only in the colleges. It makes it difficult, indeed almost 
 physically impossible, for the college to meet this demand and still 
 preserve Its original standards of fitting men for farm life. Thus 
 has their own success become one of their serious burdens, calling 
 for the greatest wisdom, not to say patience, on the part of both the 
 college and the public. 
 
 All things considered, the outlook is for a glorious future, and 
 the historian fifty years hence will discharge a pleasant duty in 
 making record of the richest half-century of human progress along 
 agricultural and humanistic lines, to the accomplishment of which 
 the American agricultural college will have contributed its full and 
 proper share.