PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL, EDUCATION. 255 



the testing laboratories, including microscopic work and chemical analysis, a 

 study of dust preventives, platting, field notes, estimates, study and research iu 

 road legislation, administration and history, general geology, quarrying, selec- 

 tion of road materials, and special studies of clays, asphalts, bitumens, and 

 cements. 



Six engineer students were appointed for service during the last fiscal year, 

 five of whom have remained in the service. This project has given excellent 

 results, and the engineers, after a few years' training with this Othce, are in 

 great demand for state and county worlv. It is a gratifying development that 

 state and county officials are turning more and more to the Office for engineers 

 to carry out their road work. This practice is, of course, injurious in one 

 sense to the efficiency of the Office in that our best men are constantly leaving 

 us, but the result in gain through the distribution of trained men in all sec- 

 tions of the country is so great as to be a vindication of the wisdom of the 

 project. 



The investigation with regard to the status of highway engineering in 

 schools and colleges has been supplemented by much cooperative work tend- 

 ing to the improvement of the courses of construction in highway engineering. 

 The Office has aided a number of schools in establishing first-class testing 

 laboratories and has given advice in connection with the course of study. 



The Editor of the Department reports a htrger volume of business 

 than ever before in the Division of Publications and calls attention 

 to the fact that many requests come from educational institutions 

 where the publications are desired for use as text-books or for refer- 

 ence purposes. He regrets that requests from these sources can not 

 be fully complied with and that applicants are of necessity referred 

 to Senators and Representatives in Congress and to the Superin- 

 tendent of Documents when large numbers are desired. The atti- 

 tude of the Department with reference to the use of its publications 

 by educators and schools is clearly set forth in the following para- 

 graph from the report of the Secretary of Agriculture for 1909: 



The Department recognizes the fact that teachers and pupils in the public 

 schools are most effective agencies in the rapid and widespi-ead dissemination 

 of information and that the sending of suitable agricultural literature to the 

 public-school teachers who request it is likely to be productive of great good. 

 And while it is true that many of the department publications are suitable in 

 their present form for use in public schools and many thousands of them 

 annually go into the schools, it is also true that much needs to be done in the 

 way of iireparing agricultural literature and compiling information with special 

 reference to the needs and limitations of pupils in the public schools. This 

 function the Department has begun to exercise and purposes to develop more 

 fully in futux'e. 



During the year 1900 there were issued 1,200 separate publications, 

 of which 715 were new or recently revised publications and 485 were 

 reissues of earlier publications. These publications contained a total 

 of 42,203 printed pages and a total of 17,190,345 copies of them were 

 printed. 



