204 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



The same dangei of reasoning and generalizing from empirical 

 knowledge prevails to-day that did a century ago. The difference 

 is one of degree rather than kind. While a wrong deduction at the 

 present day would not become as fixed and deep-seated as formerly 

 before the error would be detected, our agriculture is on so much 

 more intensive and extensive scale that in the meantime more harm 

 would have been done. The reason for investigation which will go 

 beyond the economic result and extend our definite knowledge into 

 many new lines which are now obscure was never more evident than at 

 the present time. The need for it arises not only out of the necessities 

 of the stations themselves in giving reliable and intelligent advice 

 to the farmer, but from its importance to all agricultural teaching. 



Agricultural instruction rests in a very large degree upon the facts 

 which have been worked out by the experiment stations and similar 

 agencies ~for investigation. Previous to their establishment the 

 amount of material suited to agricultural instruction was small and 

 was made up largely of empirical knowledge coupled with the ex- 

 perience of good farming. The work of the experiment stations has 

 immensely broadened the fund of known facts and has laid a broad 

 foundation for a science of agriculture. It has thus opened the way 

 for placing agricultural teaching upon a better pedagogic basis. 



This is the most important permanent result of our station work. 

 Its broad influence and permanent value far outweigh the results 

 which stop with the immediate answer to a practical question. As 

 the progress of agricutural education in the past has been linked w^ith 

 agricultural investigation, so its higher development in the future 

 will depend upon the development of agricultural science and the 

 arrangement of the material in pedagogic form. In promoting this 

 the experiment stations are keeping entirely within their legitimate 

 province. They owe a duty to agricultural education which no other 

 agency can discharge. In the highest sense they are institutions for 

 education — education in the science as well as in the art. 



In their annual reports for the past year President Hadley, of 

 Yale, and President Jordan, of Leland Stanford, both have some 

 interesting things to say upon the relations of instruction and inves- 

 tigation. Both emphasize the importance of research to the teacher 

 and urge it as a logical and important phase of university work. 



Doctor Jordan says: "To the university teacher individual re- 

 search is the breath of life, and it is the duty of the institution in 

 every reasonable way to foster its development. . . . No one can be 

 a great teacher without the spirit of research; without this he lags 

 behind the progress of knowledge, and his mental equipment becomes 

 second hand." While in the case of most university men the prac- 

 tical purpose of research is that of making them better teachers, it 



