Seventy-Tiiikd Annual Report 1255 



That such national legislation as is contemplated by the so-called 

 Page Bill and those similar to it is inadvisable on the following 

 grounds : 



1. It is coercive as to policy and method and is iindnly stimu- 

 lating as to rate of growth of vocational education. It violates 

 the biological law governing the sound and efficient development of 

 educational and social agencies. 



2. It proposes an educational scheme on an immense scale, for 

 which there is little experimental support. 



3. It is not adjustable to the educational policy and adminis- 

 trative machinery already established in many states, including 

 IsTew York. 



4. It opens the way for bureaucratic regulations on the part 

 of the federal government that might limit the autonomy of the 

 states in the administration of their educational affairs. 



5. This bill is in opposition to the sound policy of fostering 

 the agriculture and country life of a state through the activity of 

 state agencies which shall have their source in local initiative and 

 support. 



6. The agricultural extension bill, providing for extension 

 work in agriculture by the College of Agriculture, is practically 

 free from the objections that hold against the other measures 

 herein mentioned that are now before congress, in that it is in 

 harmony with the acts of 1862 and supplementary acts granting 

 federal aid to state agencies. 



Therefore be it 



Resolved, That if the policy is adopted of returning to a state 

 for specific purposes a portion of the income that the federal 

 government derives from the indirect taxation of the citizens of 

 that state, the state should have the same liberty in the application 

 of these funds to the purposes named that it has in the use of 

 any other portion of its income. 



That the policy of the further introduction of instruction in 

 agriculture into the public schools; and that to better accomplish 

 this result, plans should be perfected as rapidly as possible for 

 maintaining agricultural instruction with larger allotments: and 

 that an allotment be provided each school, union or high school, 

 teaching a class of not less than fifteen in agriculture, and for the 



