4 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



i 



and by the accretions of common experience, but the fundamental 

 basis of progress was very largely lacking. 



To secure laudable progress in the fundamental condition of educa- 

 tion, Professor Chamberlin held that systematic provision for scientific 

 research is requisite, and he used the term in a broad sense to include 

 rigorous investigation in any field. '"To give this research its best 

 adaptations to the needs of a people, it should be systematically con- 

 trolled in the lines most tributary to these needs. To make the results 

 available to all who will use them, suitable means for dissemination 

 are requisite. Inevitably the highest intellectual training will grow 

 out of this, for such training is both the prerequisite and the outcome 

 of the struggle to find truth and to test it. Out of this training will 

 come the best possible development of intellectual capacity, of right 

 attitude toward truth, and of considerate action controlled by the 

 scientific spirit." 



The change which has taken place in Wisconsin in the attitude 

 toward agricultural questions, as a result of the research and extension 

 work which has been carried on, was cited by the speaker in illustra- 

 tion of the application and far-reaching importance of this phase of 

 education. He said: ' ' It was my privilege to compare the agricultural 

 conventions of this State at two periods separated by a decade, within 

 which the experiment station became a potent influence. The domi- 

 nant intellectual and moral attitude of the earlier period was distinctly 

 disputatious and dogmatic. Opinions and floating notions played the 

 part that should have been reserved for demonstrations. Interpreta- 

 tions were loose and close analysis rare. In the second period the 

 dominant attitude was that of a scientific conference. Opinions were 

 replaced by demonstrations or by tentative hypotheses. Conviction 

 was sought by the presentation of determinate facts, gathered by 

 experiment and laborious observation, carefully analyzed, and cau- 

 tiously interpreted. The whole was characterized by a notable approach 

 to the methods of approved scientific procedure. The intellectual and 

 moral contrast of the two periods was one of the most pronounced 

 expressions of advance in the higher education in a great mass of people 

 in the midst of practical life which it has ever been my privilege to 

 witness." 



This is a very strong statement and a high tribute to the intellectual 

 and moral uplift growing out of this work — a phase of the result 

 which has seldom been fully appreciated; hut the counterpart of the 

 changed condition described in Wisconsin can be found in many other 

 States in the Union to-day, and it is after all of far deeper signifi- 

 cance than the more tangible material results. 



As bearing upon the relative importance of education for the indi- 

 vidual and investigation for the masses. Professor Chamberlin 

 expressed his conviction that while it is a legitimate function of the 



