xii Report of the Director 



The total registration in the College of Agriculture from the foundation 

 to the present time, so far as we have been able to determine it from our 

 permanent record cards, is as follows : 



Former students 5414 



Students now registered i,i88 



Total 6,602 



If a college of agriculture of these proportions is to be maintained, the 

 State must provide larger facilities in the way of buildings and equipments 

 and also a largely increased maintenance fund. It is a question now either 

 of restricting the registration to much lower figures than we already have, 

 or else of increasing the staff and facilities sufficiently to handle the in- 

 creasing work with satisfactory effectiveness. It is now impossible to 

 house the agricultural students in the buildings of the College of Agri- 

 culture, and some of the classes are held in other buildings of Cornell 

 University not belonging to the State. 



extension and investigation 



The activities of the College run along the three lines of research, 

 regular teaching, and extension. The extension work is the natural and 

 necessary outcome of the other tv/o, in an institution supported by the 

 people. The backbone of the College is necessarily the regular teaching, or 

 academic, work, and the first obligation is to provide the best possible 

 instruction to the students who come to it. Education by means of 

 agriculture and country-life subjects should be as sound and as effective 

 as education by any other means. The nature and the aims of regular 

 academic work are well understood and do not need explanation or 

 exposition, but the ideas that underlie extension \vork in agriculture may 

 be put on record, now that special appropriations for such work have been 

 made by the Legislature. 



Extension 



I. Extension work in agriculture comprises all educational efforts 

 prosecuted at the homes and on the farms of the people, and also such 

 work at the institution itself — as the winter-courses — that is more or 

 less temporary and that centers chiefly in interests away from the College. 

 Extension work is welfare work, and it is properly a necessary part of 

 an institution that is maintained by the people for the service of the 

 people. Good extension work will develop n-wny local agents and agencies 

 directly in the communities themselves. 



Acceptable extension teaching in agriculture is possible only when it 

 is the expression and result of good teaching and good research at home. 



