296 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS, 



Dr. True submitted a brief report of progress from the committee 

 having the history of agricultural education in charge, and the com- 

 mittee was agaiu continued. 



In the section on college work and administration the four topics 

 discussed were entrance requirements to college courses, correlation 

 of secondary and short courses with the four years' course, a plan of 

 university organization, and the admmistrative relations between 

 the board of trustees, the college president, and the dean and director. 



The first topic was discussed in a paper by H. J. Waters, who 

 beheved that as far as the quantity of the work required — the number 

 of units for college entrance — the land-grant colleges should follow 

 the lead of other colleges, but as to the kind of work he would recom- 

 mend a change. He pointed out that the college preparatory work 

 now demanded is a serious burden on the country high school, owing 

 to the increasing demand upon these schools for more practical 

 courses — greater attention to agriculture, domestic science, and 

 manual arts; and he recommended that the land-grant colleges offer 

 liberal credits to vocational subjects for entrance to any college 

 course. Consideration should be given, not only to the college 

 courses, but also to the needs of the pupils in schools below college 

 grade. For this reason courses should be encouraged in the seventh 

 and eighth grades of the elementary schools, and in the first two 

 years of the high school to prepare pupUs for life work, 



D. H. Hill thought it is not entirely a question of what preparation 

 the college would like to have its entering pupils receive, but what 

 the high schools are prepared to do. He believed that for a time the 

 colleges must accept an approximation of what might be considered 

 the ideal college entrance preparation, and that possibly it might be 

 well to admit students to the agricultural courses on a lower basis 

 than to the engineering and other more technical courses, owing to 

 the fact that the country schools are not as well prepared to give 

 college entrance work as the city schools, and to his beUef that young 

 men coming from the country are able to work harder than those 

 coming from the city and thus to reach the bachelor's degree standard 

 in four years even if they start with a lower grade than do the city 

 boys. 



The paper was further discussed by Brown Ayres, who emphasized 

 the desirability of getting students for the agricultural courses from 

 classical preparatory schools; by W. M. Hays, who referred to the 

 influence of the consolidated school in keeping students in school 

 longer and thus giving them a greater amount of classical work; by 

 Howard Edwards, who had found it desirable to give college credits 

 for some liigh-school work in cases where students were able to 

 present surplus units in one line of work and were deficient in others; 

 and by A. R. Hill, who beheved that when a young man is able to do 



