288 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



passed, giving 25 per cent of the state revenues for education, and as 

 stated below, 7 per cent of this amount will go to the* university. The 

 law also ju-ovides that liiirh schools and normal schools must teach 

 agriculture in order to receive state aid, and this provision has led 

 the university to nuike plans for aiding these schools along agricul- 

 tural lines. (See The Secondary Schools, p. 317.) 



The agricultural colleges gave instruction in agriculture to more 

 students than in any previous year. The number of white students 

 in four-year agricultural courses was 5,380, a gain of 884 students, or 

 nearly 20 per cent over the attendance in 11)08. There were also 9,017 

 white students in shorter courses in agriculture, and 1,442 negro 

 students in agricultural courses, making a total of 15,839 students 

 enrolled in agricultural courses in the colleges. This is 12 per cent 

 more students in agriculture than ever before enrolled in American 

 colleges. 



HISTORICAL DATA. 



Considerable progress has been made by the special committee ap- 

 pointed by the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and 

 Experiment Stations to collect data for a history of agricultural edu- 

 cation in the United States. The assembling of data has been done 

 through the agricultural education service of this Office and plans are 

 now making to prepare an historical paper to be presented at the 

 proposed celebration in Washington in 1912 of the fiftieth anniversary 

 of the enactment of the land-grant act of 18G2 and of the organic 

 act of this Department and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the en- 

 actment of the Hatch Act of 1887, establishing state agricultural 

 experiment stations. 



Acting for the committee, the Office of Experiment Stations sent 

 out a circular letter dated September 20, 1908, to presidents and other 

 members of agricultural college faculties, directors of agricultural 

 experiment stations, and other educators and investigators who might 

 be familiar with some facts concerning the history of agricultural 

 education in this countrv. asking them to aid the committee in one or 

 more of the following ways: 



(1) By sending to tlie Office of Experiment Stations pamphlets, reports, letters, 

 and other original docnmeuts which can he spared, and which the owner wishes 

 to donate to the historical collection of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture. 



(2) By loaning the Office of Experiment Stations similar original documents 

 which the owner does not wish to part with, in order that notes or copies may 

 be made for the committee's use. 



(3) By sending the Office of Experiment Stations references to original docu- 

 ments which can not he donated or loaned, so that arrangements may be made 

 to examine the documents. 



(4) By furnishing the committee with the names and addresses of men who 

 are familiar with some steps in the early history of the agricultural educa- 

 tion movement in this country and who can be consulted by the committee. 



