PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 233 



the plant. A main building, buildings for agriculture and horticulture, 

 for chemistry and physics, for biology and bacteriology, are in process 

 of construction, together with a boys' and a ghls' building, a horti- 

 cultural barn, and a power house. 



All of the buildings are substantially built of brick, iron, and con- 

 crete, with partitions of fireproof hollow tile and floors of concrete with 

 wood laid on top in certain of the rooms. The walls are lined inside 

 with hollow tiles, so as to give a dead air space. The construction is 

 very thorough m every respect. The buildmgs are to be heated from 

 a central heating plant, with a comprehensive ventilating system. 

 Several of them are connected by underground passages, to be used in 

 bad weather. It is expected that the buildings will be ready for 

 occupancy in the fall of 1907. They will provide accommodations for 

 about 400 pupils — 175 men and 225 women. The school has a farm 

 of about 560 acres, a part of which is in cultivation. One of the 

 farms purchased was provided with large barns for cattle, and con- 

 siderable stock is being kept there. The college will have a large 

 poultry plant and extensive rooms for showing agricultural machinery. 



In addition to training boys and girls for farm life, a regular normal 

 department will be conducted for the traming of teachers, with a 

 special view to providing persons suited to teaching elementary 

 agriculture, nature study, and the like. Although affiliated with 

 McGill University, the faculty of the college will dictate as to the 

 courses except such as lead to degrees. 



EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRI- 

 CULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



The twentieth annual convention of this association was held at 

 Baton Rouge, La., November 14-16, 1906. President M. H. Buck- 

 ham in his annual presidential address made a plea for placing 

 greater emphasis upon the liberal and '' humanistic" culture studies 

 in the curriculum, as a means of preventing narrowness and crude- 

 ness of thought and character. Such training, 'it was believed, 

 should take the form of instruction in foreign languages, literature, 

 history, economics, philosophy, and especially ethics and religion. 



Even though the function of the land-grant colleges is to produce 

 industrial experts, the speaker held that they should graduate liber- 

 ally educated experts, men who laiow one subject thoroughly and 

 many fimdamentally. ''The great problem of the higher education 

 now before us is how to integrate specialism with the totality of which 

 it is a part;" and each college was urged to see that its strongest 

 emphasis is put "upon what in any and every educational institution 

 is its main object and should be its highest ambition and satisfaction 

 and glory — its human output." 



