362 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



soon slough off its work of education and confine itself to research, the 

 holding of occasional conferences for rural progress, in which country 

 teachers and pastors join with the farmers, the initiative of the college 

 in federating various state farmers' organizations into one grand com- 

 mittee, the inauguration of several brief courses in agricultural eco- 

 nomics and rural sociology, the cooperation of some of the colleges with 

 the Carnegie Institution in an investigation into the history and con- 

 ditions of agriculture in its economic and social phases, the pride with 

 which a few of our colleges point to the increasing number of young 

 men they are sending to the farms — all these facts seem clearly to indi- 

 cate that the agricultural college will soon assert its function of leader 

 in the endeavor to solve all phases of the rural problem. 



If the analysis thus offered is a correct one, the question of ' rural 

 economics ' is far from being merely a matter of adding three or four 

 subjects of study to the agricultural course. It involves the very func- 

 tion and policy of the college itself. It alone gives proportion to the 

 problem of agricultural education, because, while distinctly admitting 

 the need of better farming and the consequently fundamental necessity 

 of the technical training of farmers, it emphasizes the importance of 

 the economic and political and social aspects of rural development. 

 And it thereby indicates that only by a due recognition of these factors, 

 in purpose, in organization, and in course of study, can the American 

 agricultural college fulfil its mission to the American farmer. 



