360 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



made to train men for the social leadership the new regime demands? 

 I see no answer except that the course must be made truly and broadly 

 vocational, and consequently that large place must be given to social 

 studies, and particularly to the concrete problems of government, in- 

 dustry and social life. 



If we examine our agricultural course from this standpoint, we 

 shall have to admit that it has the flaw common to most industrial 

 courses. It is too technical. It is not truly vocational. It does not 

 present the social view-point. It does not stimulate the student to 

 social activity. It does not give him a foundation for intelligent social 

 service when he shall go to the farm. He should study agricultural 

 economics and rural sociology, both because rural society needs leaders 

 and because, in the arming of the man, the knowledge of society's prob- 

 lems is just as vital as either expert information or personal culture. 



4. To carry out the function of the agricultural college we need, 

 finally, a vast enlargement of extension work among farmers. This 

 work will not only be dignified by a standing in the college coordinate 

 with research and the teaching of students, but it will rank as a distinct 

 department, with a faculty of men whose chief business is to teach the 

 people who can not come to the college. This department should man- 

 age farmers' institutes, carry on cooperative experiments, give demon- 

 strations in new methods, conduct courses of reading, offer series of 

 extension lectures, assist the schools in developing agricultural instruc- 

 tion, direct the work of rural young people's clubs, edit and distribute 

 such compilations of practical information as now appear under the 

 guise of experiment station bulletins, and eventually relieve the station 

 of the bulk of its correspondence. Such a department will be prepared 

 to incorporate into its work the economic, governmental and social prob- 

 lems of agriculture. It will give the farmers light upon taxation as 

 well as upon tree-pruning. The rural school will have as much atten- 

 tion as corn-breeding. The subject of the market — the ' distributive 

 half of farming,' as John M. Stahl calls it — will be given as much dis- 

 cussion as the subjects bearing upon production. We shall find here 

 a most fertile field for work. The farmers are ready for this step. 

 They have, as a rule, appreciated the real nature of the farm problem 

 more fully than have our agricultural educators. Perhaps at times 

 they have placed undue reliance upon legislation. Perhaps in periods 

 of depression they have overweighed the economic pressure as against 

 the lack of skilled farming. But the great body of farmers has rightly 

 estimated the importance of the economic, political and social questions 

 as related to their ultimate prosperity. In grange meetings, for ex- 

 ample, the subjects which arouse greatest interest are such themes as 

 taxation, the rural telephone, the country school, business cooperation. 

 The explanation of all the farmers' movements is that the farmers be- 



