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Secretary of Agriculture, and siuce that day there has been ahiiost the entire devel- 

 opment of the system of agricultural experiment stations, aVjout which so much has 

 been said here this afternoon. Now, it happens that I have had some little part in 

 that work since that day, having received my appointment in the Department of 

 Agriculture from Mr. Colman, and so I have been able to see the different stages of 

 development through which the movement for agricultural education and research 

 in this country has passed, and I have had, in my oflicial capacity, to stand rather 

 strongly for the idea of differentiation of functicms. This was necessary because in 

 the earlier days there was so much confusion of mind, even among those who dealt 

 closely with these matters, that there was great danger that the funds for agricultural 

 instruction and the funds for agricultural research would be so thoroughly mixed that 

 the true purposes of neither would be really subserved; and so it has fallen to my lot 

 to stand as tirmly as I could for the idea that the experiment station must be essen- 

 tially and primarily an instrument of research, and that the agricultural college 

 should, on the other hand, stand for agricultural education of a high type. 



I think it is clear to those who have looked into this matter that such a policy 

 has borne good fruit, because through the efforts which were made by the friends 

 of these institutions as they came to understand the situation, the agricultural 

 experiment stations have so far been held to the work of research that a very large 

 body of new truth on agricultural subjects has been collected by these stations, and 

 the body of truth thus gathered together has formed the basis, and the only sound 

 basis, for the system of agricultural instruction in the agricultural colleges; and thus 

 they have been able to put their courses, which were intended to be of college grade, 

 on a firm and attractive basis, with the result that we have an increasing body of 

 students in those colleges who are Ijeing prepared to be the leaders in agricultural 

 progress. And now that that has been done and the public mind is well informed, 

 relatively, on those matters, I am sure that we have reached another stage in the 

 development of this work. That is the one to which President Hardy in his address 

 has called special attention, and I have been particularly impressed with the fact 

 that the time is ripe for a decided movement along the line of the farmers' institute, 

 and the more elementary agricultural education, as I have gone up and down the 

 country during the past year. For in many of the States there has arisen and is 

 rapidly broadening an intelligent desire for the enlargement of the agencies for agri- 

 cultural education, outside of the agricultural college; and the agricultural college 

 men themselves have come to see that it is not enough that we have the agricultural 

 colleges and experiment stations teaching a selected body of youth and sending out a 

 large amount of printed material l)y way of inf(^rmation for the people, but that we 

 must supplement these agencies by others, which will go directly to the farmer to 

 explain the results of agricultural research to him by word of mouth, and which 

 will go into our public schools to there prepare the mass of our rural youth to under- 

 stand, as they come into active life, what the experiment stations and colleges and 

 the Department of Agriculture are doing for the advance of agriculture. 



And so I think we have reache(l the time when the friends of agricultural progress 

 in this country can do no better thing than to seriously consider what are the best 

 means for the establishment on a more permanent and progressive basis of this great 

 system of farmers' institutes which you re])resent, the extension work which the 

 colleges are beginning to do in various lines, and all those matters which relate to 

 the introduction of agricultural subjects into the public schools. 



How that shall be done, whether entirely by support within the States, or by joint 

 effort of the States and the Federal Government, it is not my province to discuss; 

 but I do wish to leave with you strongly the impression that from a somewhat 

 wide acquaintance with the movement of thought along these lines, I am sure that 

 such a body as this association here at this time can, by its discussion, delil>eration, 

 and action, do very much to forward the movement for the more permanent and 



