578 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



urged the presidents of the negro land-grant colleges to develop 

 strong vocational courses rather than to put too much emphasis on 

 the academic subjects. 



Cooperation with the Association of Land-Grant Colleges was 

 continued through its committee on instruction in agriculture, home 

 economics, and mechanic arts, of which the director of the service 

 is chairman. The committee made a report on " Methods for the 

 professional improvement while in service of college teachers of 

 technical subjects," with special reference to (1) the means employed 

 to encourage the professional improvement of teachers of agricul- 

 ture, home economics, and engineering subjects while actively en- 

 gaged, and (2) the practices with reference to assigning work to 

 young teachers as between subjects narrowly specialized and those 

 of a more general character. In preparation for the next report of 

 the committee members of the staff visited the agricultural colleges 

 in a number of the States to confer with presidents and deans in 

 regard to efforts that are being made by the land-grant colleges to 

 adapt the methods of instruction to students of varying capacities. 



The division continues to review and abstract the literature on 

 agricultural education for Experiment Station Record. 



OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 

 E. W. AxLEN, Chief. 



The past year completed 35 years of operation of experiment sta- 

 tions in the States under the Hatch Act. The maintenance of these 

 State stations has been a great cooperative undertaking, the most 

 notable example of joint effort in the support of research to be found 

 in anj^ country or any field of science. That it has been successful 

 is attested by the position these institutions have attained and by 

 the fact that no previous period has marked such notable advance- 

 ment in knowledge of matters relating to the principles and prac- 

 tice of agriculture. In no other time have such extensive and far- 

 reaching additions been made to the fund of facts, scientific rea- 

 son, and understanding as in the third of a century involved. 



The cooperation on the part of the Federal Government in this 

 vast enterprise has not been confined to the donation of funds and 

 their technical audit. It has been in the nature of participation — 

 not in the actual conduct of investigation, but in the provision and 

 stabilizing of conditions essential to productive research. Few par- 

 allels are to be found in the administration of funds for scientific 

 research. Through the Office of Experiment Stations the Federal 

 Government has followed its funds into the States, and has seen to 

 it that they were devoted to the purposes original^ intended. This 

 has inevitably meant, not alone the interpretation of the Federal 

 acts, but the defining of research efforts, the setting up and develop- 

 ment of ideals, and the outlining of the essentials fundamental to 

 the proper employment of these resources. This interpretation of 

 implied requirements has been progressive, taking account of the 

 general status of the stations in the States and the character of aid 

 most needed from them. Naturally it has advanced with the chang- 

 ing conditions surrounding, these stations, the increase in the chan- 

 nels for the diffusion of agricultural information, and the demand 

 for more intensive study of certain types of problems. 



