408 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



has already begun to do. the restoration of soil fertility will be 

 relatively rapid. 



In this respect Ave are more fortunate than any other people has 

 ever been. The period of our wasteful agriculture has been shorter 

 and the means at hand for restoration and improvement are far 

 greater than other peoples have enjoyed. Prices an; not likely to 

 sink again to the former ruinous level, and the prospect is that ere 

 long we shall have more contented and permanent agricultural com- 

 munities than ever before. 



It is obvious, of course, that the agricultural colleges have not been 

 of uniform grade and that some of them have been compelled to 

 include secondary w^ork. The necessity for this has grown out of 

 the school systems of the respective States, which have required the 

 colleges to maintain preparatory departments and prevented their 

 raising the entrance requirements beyond a certain point. 



While some of these colleges have found little or no difficulty in 

 conforming to the standards of the Carnegie Foundation, others have 

 not regarded so great a change as advisable at the present time. This 

 must necessarily be a local question, dependent on the educational 

 sj^stem of the State and the position of the college in that system. 

 If the college is to teach agriculture to the young people of the State, 

 its grade should be a practical one, j^ossible of attainment through 

 the existing school system. It is more important that the needs of 

 the State should be met and the people taught the principles under- 

 lying their greatest industry, than that arbitrary and impractical 

 standards should be striven for in order that rank of a certain class 

 may be attained. 



On the other hand, the land-grant colleges should not fail to put 

 themselves in line with the general movement to perfect the school 

 systems of the States. As rajiidly as the development of these insti- 

 tutions make it possible, the colleges should separate out their second- 

 ary work, direct their attention to the strictly college functions, and 

 make their standards conform to the new conditions. This course 

 Ihey are definitely committed to, and there is unanimity upon the 

 point that the real mission of the agricultural college properly con- 

 ducted is to do the w^ork of a true college, with its experiment station 

 and its extension department. In striving to fulfill this mission 

 the college can not attempt to cover the Avhole field of agricultural 

 endeavor, but must frankly acknowledge its limitations. 



This view was set forth in a recent editorial, and coincides with 

 the opinion expressed by the Association of American Agricultural 

 Colleges and Experiment Stations at the Portland convention last 

 year. It was clearly the prevailing sentiment of the association that 

 the secondary w^ork in agriculture should be definitely differentiated 



