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Bailey's phrase, that " every subject in which men are interested can be put 

 into pedagogic form and be a means of training the mind." On the other hand 

 the teclHiical educator will concede that a college graduate in whatever course 

 should be a cultivated man and that there are certain studies with which all 

 cultivated men sliould have some familiarity. The technical college will, more- 

 over, be compelled to employ instructors who can so teach the technical subject 

 that it shall not only give the knowledge and training desired, but shall also 

 yield sound culture, become truly liberalizing and vision giving. But a greater 

 (juestion remains. As society becomes more fully self-directive the demand for 

 social leadership increases. Almost instinctively we look to the college-trained 

 man for such leadersliij). We e.xi>ect him to understand and to help answer the 

 questions that society has to meet. It is not enough that he do his particular 

 work well ; he has a public duty. Only thus can he pay all his debt to society 

 for the training he has had. Yet to-day our technical courses are largely engaged 

 in training individuals who. barring some general culture, are highly specialized 

 experts. ^Yhat preparation, for instance, does the future engineer get in college 

 for facing such a matter as the labor question? lie is likely to be brought into 

 close touch with this question. But as a rule he is not especially qualified to 

 handle it. The point of view of the course he has pursued is technique, ever 

 technique. He secures in college little incentive and less training for intelligent 

 performance of his duty as citizen and as member of society. The prol>lems of 

 mathematics are not the pi'oblems of industry, and pi'ofound study of chem- 

 istry gives neither the premises nor the data for sound judgment upon social 

 questions. These public questions can not be left to social experts. A demo- 

 cratic society must insist that all its educated men sliall be leaders in solving 

 society's problems. But even the educated men can not lead unless they have 

 first been taught. I believe society has more to fear from technical experts who 

 either neglect their social duty or are ignorant of the social problem than it has 

 from highly trained specialists who have never studied Greek nor mastered 

 Browning. Moreover, under modern conditions, have we a right to call that 

 man cultivated who ignores the great social problems of the ageV We face here 

 one of the coming educational questions. How can the industrial course be made 

 to train men for the social leadership the new regime demands? I see no 

 answer except that the course must be made truly and broadly vocational, and 

 consequently that large place must be given to social studies, and particularly 

 to the concrete problems of government, industry, and social life. 



If we examine our agricultural course from this standpoint, we shall have to 

 admit that it has the flaw common to most industrial courses. It is too tech- 

 nical. It is not truly vocational. It does not present the social view point. It 

 does not stimulate the student to social activity. It does not give him a founda- 

 tion for intelligent social service when he shall go to the farm. He should study 

 agricultural economics and rural sociology, both because rural society needs 

 leaders and because, in the arming of the man, the knowledge of society's prob- 

 lems is just as vital as either expert information or personal culture. 



(4) To carry out the function of the agricultural college we need, finally, a 

 vast enlargement of extension work among farmers. This work will not only 

 be dignified by a standing in the college coordinate with research and the teach- 

 ing of students, but it will rank as a distinct department, with a faculty of men 

 whose chief business is to teach the people who can not come to the college. 

 This department should manage farmers' institutes, carry on cooperative experi- 

 ments, give demonstrations in new methods, conduct courses of reading, offer 

 series of extension lectures, assist the schools in developing agricultural 

 instruction, direct the work of rural young i»eople's clubs, edit and distribute 

 such compilations of practical information as now appear under the guise 

 of experiment-station bulletins, and eventually relieve the station of the 

 bulk of its correspondence. Such a department will be prepared to incorporate 

 into its work the economic, governmental, and social problems of agriculture. 

 It will give the farmers light upon taxation as well as upon tree pruning. The 

 rural school will have as much attention as corn breeding. The subject of the 

 market — the "distributive half of farming," as .John M. Stahl calls it — will be 

 given as much discussion as the subjects bearing iipon jiroduction. We shall 

 find here a most fertile field for work. The farmers are ready for this step. 

 They have, as a rule, apiireciated the real nature of the farm problem more 

 fully than have our agricultural educators. Perhaps at times they have placed 

 undue reliance upon legislation. Perhai)S in ])eriods of depression they have 

 overweighed the economic pressure us against tlie lack of skilled farming. But 



