302 EXPERIMENT STATION EECOED. [Vol.38 



Public hecarings were held in several sections of the State, as well 

 as conferences with representatives of various agricultural organiza- 

 tions, educational institutions, and similar bodies. A detailed in- 

 spection was made of the work of the college and a comparison of its 

 management with that of other institutions. A committee attended 

 the 1916 session of the Association of American Agricultural Col- 

 leges and Experiment Stations, and had interviews with many of the 

 presidents and deans present and with officials of this Department, 

 the U. S. Bureau of Education, and others. In short, the intention 

 was to seek information from all available sources, and to make a 

 thoroughgoing study from which could be formulated, with some de- 

 gree of finality, conclusions as to the future policy of the State 

 toward the college. 



The commission gave special consideration to a determination of 

 what should be the fundamental purposes and relative educational 

 status of an agricultural college. It concludes that " the land-grant 

 colleges were primarily established to promote the study of agri- 

 culture by the most advanced and scientific methods of instruction." 

 Consequently, " the courses of instruction in the college should indi- 

 cate an institution of a high grade for the teaching of scientific agri- 

 culture. In its distinctive field of agriculture it should be compar- 

 able with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in its field of 

 mechanic arts. No countenance whatever should be given to any sug- 

 gestions that the agricultural college should be placed on the level 

 of a trade or vocational school.'' 



This attitude is specially gratifying because the contention of those 

 primarily responsible for instigating the inquiry was that the college 

 courses were too technical, and that the institution should be in effect 

 a farm school. Similar views have been expressed in other quarters, 

 and it is hoped that the conclusions of this commission may help to 

 terminate controversy along this line. 



The commission gives little credence to the conception occasionally 

 met with that agricultural education is somehow inferior in its peda- 

 gogical requirements and value to other types of education. The 

 policy early established and consistently maintained by the Massachu- 

 setts College of insisting on adequate preparation and high standards 

 of instruction and scholarship is thoroughly approved. The commis- 

 sion declares that the standards of entrance " should be high enough 

 to secure students capable of maintaining a high grade both in 

 academic and scientific study. Without admitting that these entrance 

 requirements should be the same as those adopted by the colleges of 

 liberal arts, yet the commission believes that they should be of as high 

 a standard. . . . The commission indorses fully the position of the 

 college in requiring that its students shall be as well prepared for its 



