12 EXPERIMENT STATION EECOED. 



The proposal to organize secondary teaching in the extension department de- 

 veloped considerable discussion and opposition, the present practice being more 

 largely in favor of holding this in the college of agriculture. 



Experiment station organization and policy. — The committee on station or- 

 ganization and policy reported that where station publications are to be sold 

 the expense of printing the copies of the edition should not be charged against 

 the Federal funds and the publications should be mailed under postage. As to 

 attendance upon meetings of scientific societies, it took the view that the lead- 

 ing members of the staff should for their own sake, so far as they are able, 

 attend the sessions of at least one such society annually, and that the best 

 interests of the stations frequently demand representation at meetings and 

 conventions. In such cases the expenses of the station's representative should 

 be paid. 



With reference to the relation of the station to extension, the committee re- 

 iterated its position " that nothing in the organization of extension work or its 

 distribution should be permitted, on the one hand, to detract from the prestige 

 of the station in the results of the work already accomplished, or, on the other 

 hand, so hamper its staff with details as to interfere with their carrying out 

 the work of investigation. . . . 



" The extension department of the college should carry the common stock of 

 agricultural knowledge to the farming public, leaving it to the station to 

 directly or indirectly disseminate the special results of its investigations and 

 demonstrate their application." 



Committee on extension work. — The committee on extension work, through 

 President K. L. Butterfield, chairman, presented a quite voluminous report 

 dealing with the theory of extension work, its forms and definitions, present 

 status, relationships to other agencies and departments, administrative or- 

 ganization and financial support, the training of workers, and some of the 

 special problems of extension work. 



The committee concludes that : " Extension work promises to be one of the 

 very largest fields of endeavor in our whole agricultural question. It will 

 attempt one of the largest tasks that the Government has ever endeavored to 

 perform, namely, to reach effectively through instruction and inspiration at 

 least 50,000,000 of rural people. 



" The men who do this work must be men of vision, who have some com- 

 prehension of the fundamental character of the task, with enough imagination 

 to conceive its importance and possibilities. They must have some of the 

 missionary spirit. They must be men who see ahead of them a permanent 

 life work. They must realize the significance of the rural problem and they 

 must be ambitious to help solve the problem." 



Additional legislation. — Much interest developed in the consideration of vari- 

 ous measures for the promotion and development of agricultural education, 

 experimentation, and extension, as defining the general policy of the association. 



Dean E. Davenport advocated the endowment by the Federal Government of 

 secondary education in the public high schools and State normal schools, the 

 State colleges of agriculture for the special purpose of training teachers for 

 these institutions, and a limited amount of extension teaching by the colleges 

 " as a temporary measure until secondary education in agriculture can be fully 

 established." When agricultural high schools are in operation such extension 

 teaching as will be needed can be done from these schools instead of from the 

 colleges. 



Provision for traveling specialists or " elBciency men " was indorsed, to advise 

 with farmers direct, to demonstrate approved methods, establish demonstration 



