604 • EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



spirit, the individuality, and the freedom so necessary to the life 

 and progress of an educational institution." 



Dr. Stone also referred to the attempts " to crystallize an inter- 

 pretation of the jMorrill Act to the effect that the land-grant colleges 

 were intended to be of secondary grade — a kind of industrial and 

 trade school; that agricultural instruction is 'per se of this order, 

 and that ' mechanic arts ' means trade and vocational training rather 

 than engineering," an assumption which he found to be borne out 

 by neither the law nor the facts. 



"All of these difficulties, the struggle for recognition, the opposi- 

 tion of competing institutions, the attempts to segregate the colleges 

 in an inferior class, were but to be expected under the circumstances. 

 They constitute real obstacles and hindrances to progress in many 

 cases. T^^hey might have been to a larger degree averted by con- 

 certed and positive action of the institutions in formulating their 

 policies with regard to those things and defining their positions in 

 advance." 



Dr. Stone also discussed the situation growing out of the present 

 extraordinaiy general interest in agriculture, which has brought 

 demands on the college the result of which " is likely to be a weaken- 

 ing and letting down of the quality of its instruction and research." 

 Although recognizing this popular awakening as one of the most 

 encouraging movements of the day, he held that extension work 

 demands the wisest guidance in order that it may find its right place 

 and relation in the organization of our institutions. AYhile promot- 

 ing it and giving it true direction, " we should guard jealously our 

 scientific workers and teachers from the distractions of extension 

 enterprises. It is most certain that the future will demand more 

 and more of our institutions;^ that mucli of tlio present extension 

 work will prove onh^' ephemeral; t hat t he donmnd will Ik' fur more 

 thorough teaching, serious investigations, and f(n- a service which 

 eventually can only be suj)plied by th.ose wlio lal)or in the laboratory 

 and class room rather than on the lecture platform. To prepare for 

 tliis time we must increase rather than diminish the substantial 

 scientific work in our stations and sound teaching in our colleges, 

 as the reserve from which extension activities must always draw 

 their inspiration and material." 



Viewing broadly the work of these land-grant institutions, Dr. 

 Stone declared that their establishment " has brought the application 

 of scientific principles into the commonest occupations, emphasized 

 the democracy of education, established the status of tax-supported 

 institutions of higher learning, and, more than any other cause, con- 

 tributed to the development of the new education. Xow, at the end of 

 fifty years, the land-grant colleges with the experiment stations and 



