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EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



[Vol. 36 



foundation of information but he must acquire an attitude and a 

 method. This is often much harder than learning facts and prin- 

 ciples, and it is where some men prove lacking. 



The graduate student often feels that he needs especially a larger 

 fund of information to make him efficient and resourceful, and sets 

 out to get Imowledge. He needs not only this but to get understand- 

 ing, to develop an inquiring attitude, a vision, a discriminating 

 criticism. He needs to come directly and intimately into contact 

 with research in its higher restricted sense, as an active participant. 

 This teaches him its real responsibilities and its exact nature. For 

 this purpose graduate study in some of the older exact sciences is 

 especially advantageous, because the methods are better worked out 

 and the requirements usually more severe. Graduate work in some 

 of the divisions of agriculture may not necessarily convey a deep 

 impression of the spirit and feeling of science. Whether it does 

 or not depends somewhat upon the teacher. The tasks and problems 

 set are often comparatively simple in their scientific aspects, al- 

 though they may be laborious and difficult in other respects. 



The means of training and of securing competent persons for the 

 work of the stations continues to be a live question. It was one of 

 the topics before the last convention of the Association of American 

 Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, and was discussed 

 in two important papers in a joint meeting of the sections of college 

 work and experiment station work. The discussion related spe- 

 cifically to the encouragement of advanced training by offering 

 employment to a limited number of graduate students as part-time 

 research assistants in the station. Such an arrangement has been 

 put into effect at a number of the stations, and especially at the New 

 Jersey Station it has constituted a definite policy and a means of 

 providing assistance. 



In discussing this plan from the standpoint of advantage to the 

 station, Dr. J. G. Lipman. described its operation at his institution. 

 The station was led into the plan partly from considerations of 

 economy, feeling that it offered a means of securing cheap assistance 

 without lessening the effectiveness and value of the research, and at 

 the same time would stimulate advanced study. 



The present tendency to organize station work on the project 

 basis has been found to favor the use of graduate students as re- 

 search assistants. Thus research problems of considerable magnitude 

 may be divided so as to assign different parts to assistants working 

 under close supervision ; and " an experienced investigator may so 

 arrange his research problems as to permit the utilization of the 

 services of beginners in research, provided they possess the right 

 temperament and training." While it is not the practice to place 



