78 EEPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



This plan was found generally unsatisfactory, for the reason that the 

 president had many other duties and interests, and was frequently 

 not particularly adapted by training or experience to the direction 

 of an experiment station. The history of the stations has shown that 

 plan to be ineffective, and it has been almost entirely superseded 

 by the appointment of separate administrative officers for the stations. 



The combined duties of the deanship and the directorship have 

 reached a point in some of the larger institutions where the condition 

 is quite analogous to that prevailing when the directorship was in 

 the hands of the president of the college. While the combined dean 

 and director usually has special fitness for administering the station 

 work as a result of training and experience, the extent of the enter- 

 prises assigned to that dual officer at a number of the institutions is 

 at present considerably greater than was the administration of most 

 agricultural colleges 10 or 15 years ago. The station's appro- 

 priation is frequently larger and its working force greater in num- 

 ber than was the case with the agricultural colleges at that time, and 

 the manifold activities and relations of the station make heavy calls 

 on the time of the administrative officer. The coming of the Adams 

 fund, with its special provision for research as distinguished from 

 other grades of activity, and the increased State appropriations for 

 the development of special lines of experimentation, branch stations, 

 etc., has complicated the station management and made intelligent 

 supervision essential to the highest effectiveness. Granting the 

 largest measure of academic freedom in experiment station work, 

 the activities of the different departments are promoted by a general 

 following up of their progress and their relations to other lines of 

 duty. The matter of providing suitable permanent records of the 

 work calls for attention and should receive more than it often does; 

 and the preparation of various reports calls for rather intimate 

 knowledge in regard to the progress in various lines. These and 

 manj^ other things are in the function of the station director. Taken 

 as a whole, the proper administration of an experiment station is in 

 itself a large undertaking. 



While the advantages of combining the collegiate, the experiment 

 station, and the extension work in agriculture under a single admin- 

 istrative head may be recognized by the office of dean, it seems clear 

 that the time has come in the larger institutions when provision 

 should be made in the organization for an officer who will directly 

 perform the functions of station director and represent the dean in 

 the carrying out of details and the execution of general polic3^ Such 

 an executive officer would enable the dean to give his personal atten- 

 tion to the larger matters pertaining to the institution as a whole, 

 and the correlation and development of its work. 



