PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 283 



trained for leadership. Students do not seem to have the power to 

 apply themselves to the problems of life when they go home. The 

 colleges of agriculture are trying to change all this, and it is quite as 

 necessary to carry this spirit through the post-graduate as through 

 the undergraduate work. 



AVith reference to the specific degrees to be conferred, the speaker 

 reaffirmed his belief that simplification is needed and that it is un- 

 wise to make separate degrees for agriculture, preferring the earning 

 of the well-established degrees already recognized by the fellowship 

 of educated men. The only degrees in course in his opinion should 

 be the Ph. D., M. S., and B. S. (or M. A. and B. A.) 



Dean True, of the graduate school, gave a brief history of the 

 enterprise and summarized some of the causes which are operating 

 to increase the desirability of graduate study in agriculture. He 

 called attention to the large increase in both national and state funds 

 for agricultural education, research, and inspection since the previ- 

 ous session of the graduate school and to the uni^recedented demand 

 for trained men to fill positions as teachers and investigators. So 

 short is the supply that much competition for men with successful 

 experience has arisen. Salaries have generally risen — whereas 

 $1,800 to $2,000 was considered a good salary for a professor a few 

 years ago, from $2,500 to $3,000 is now quite common. The initial 

 salaries of 90 graduates of agricultural colleges in 1907, reported 

 from 33 States, ranged from $500 (a kind of fellowship) to $1,700, 

 and averaged $950. Those of 9 men with master's degrees averaged 

 $1,200 and of 5 with doctor's degrees $1,300. 



He showed that the White House Conference on the Conservation 

 of our National Resources had brought out the need of a host of 

 agricultural experts to solve the problem of the soil and the crops 

 and to teach the results to the masses of the rural population. 



In the opinion of Doctor True — 



The paramount need of the time is an adequate supply of thoroughly trained 

 leaders in this cause. It is true we need well-equipped men all alonjr the line. 

 But in the higher realms of research, College and university education, and 

 broad organization ft>r the promotion of agriculture we need a large number 

 of men with much more training than is ordinarily given in the agricultural 

 college. Without those leaders the real advance of our agricultural interests 

 will be slow and halting. 



We must develop a class of real agricultural scholars and thinkers — men who 

 will find the satisfaction of their lives in the discovery of new truth and in 

 pointing out the paths of real jirogress for their fellow-men — men who will 

 sticli to their tasks and do good work in higher research and education regard- 

 less of commercial inducements or the a|)plause given to more popular leaders. 

 It is to aid in the discovery and encouragement of such men that this graduate 

 school of .Mgriculturo has especially been established, and it is hoped that even 

 in the few days devoted to this present session much will be done to this end. 



