CONVENTION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 543 



oflfered in tlie colleues rei)resented by the Association is obtained by 

 students who have had a broad general education. The attendance on 

 the mechanical courses is good as compared with that in tlie other 

 departments when separate and distinct courses in mechanic arts are 

 l)rovided. That this separation is desirable is being increasinyly 

 appreciated, and there is an evident tendency to raise the course to 

 the highest grade and admit only well-trained students, lieports from 

 the diftereiit institutions indicate that the courses are generally 

 being strengthened, equipment improved, and attendance increasing. 

 Experimental laboratories are being introduced. 



In the annual address of the president, S. W. Johnson, the extent 

 and importance of agricultural education and experimentation were 

 pointed out and progress nnide in these lines was reviewed. It was 

 stated tliat the work of American experiment stations is on the whole 

 " not less efficient and not less useful than that of the Old World.'' The 

 importance of adapting the work to those who are to be immediiitely 

 benefited is insisted upon. 



"Our duty ia to aim as high as possible without overshooting- the mark. We can 

 not succeed with instruction that is too purely disciplinary, because our constitu- 

 ents will not relish it. Neither will success bo attained by the cramming process. 

 The young pupil and the parent must be brought to see that profttable education 

 demands first of all enlargement of mental capacity as an essential prerequisite to 

 extensive acquisitions of knowledge, and that if a man is well exerci.sed and devel- 

 oped in all around intellectual athletics, his appetite, his digestive and assimilatory 

 powers may be fully trusted to iiud abundant nourishment and to make rapid and 

 healthy growth." 



The speaker advocated some familiarity with the dead languages as a 

 preparation for scientific studies, and commended the introduction of 

 shorter courses in agricultural colleges. He claimed that the teacher 

 should always be a student and if possible an investigator. 



"Just as in our colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts we should be careful 

 at the outset to fit discipline and instruction to the actual needs of the students, so 

 in tlie experiment stations Ave ought at first to give prouunence to those lines of work 

 which our constituencies can most plainly see are to them directly useful, are in fact 

 to them indispensable." 



The advantage which the investigator derives from the support of a 

 highly educated constituency and from the introduction of elements of 

 l)ermanency in scientific research was illustrated by the successful 

 work of the German investigators. 



"I would urge the younger scientists of our colleges and stations to place them- 

 selves, if for but a few months only, under the influence of the great European 

 teachers, and I hold it to be a most wortliy use of any fund that maj' be available to 

 send college teachers and station workers abroad to gather inspiration and finish at 

 the Old World shrines of science. Considered as mere tools our chemists, botanists, 

 and all who adopt coll"ge and station duty as life work arc worth sending to be 

 sharpened, adjusted, and polished where that business has been transacted longest 

 and most efficiently." 



Tlie adoption of a uniform system of publications to be strictly fol- 

 lowed by all the stations was advocated. The confusion that results 



