528 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



cient provision has been made for teaching- the subject, in comparison 

 with other departments, although there has been demand for agricul- 

 tural instruction. Here the contention does not hold that the teaching 

 force is small because of a small demand. 



At eighteen institutions, on the other hand, there are only five or 

 less students to each instructor in agriculture and horticulture. This 

 apparently favorable condition is not always an indication that the 

 subject has been developed, for in nine cases this proportion is found 

 to be accompanied by both a small teaching force and a small number of 

 students (ten or less). In other words, there has been little provision 

 and little resulting demand. In one or two cases the disproportion 

 may be ascribed to a considerable increase in the teaching force during 

 the past year or two, from which there has hardly been time to realize 

 a proportionate increase in attendance. 



While, therefore, there are difficulties in making comparisons of 

 this sort, it appears evident that a considerable number of institu- 

 tions located in agricultural communities have not yet made adequate 

 provision in the teaching force for agriculture and horticulture. On 

 the one hand the number of students to the teaching force is dispro- 

 portionately large at man} r institutions, due to the fact that the teach- 

 ing force has not developed in proportion to the demands for instruction. 

 On the other hand there are a considerable number of institutions 

 where the teaching force has remained very low and the attendance 

 likewise. 



If these figures suggest anything, they suggest, as Dean Davenport 

 said at the Des Moines meeting, that the number of students to be 

 taught at a given time is not the proper basis on which to build up an 

 agricultural faculty. The subject itself should be the unit, and suffi- 

 cient instructors should be provided to develop it and make it attract- 

 ive. The contention that more instructors are not needed until there 

 is more demand for instruction is not believed to be sound or reason- 

 able; and the inference from it that these instructors will be supplied 

 when the demand has asserted the need of them is evidently not borne 

 out by the returns given above, probably because when the time came 

 there was lack of funds. This view point, it is believed, has done more 

 than any other single thing to obscure the needs of the agricultural 

 departments and to retard their development. 



The development of agricultural education has proceeded slowly, 

 and interest and confidence in it have been won by persistent and 

 patient labor. The agricultural course requires special attention from 

 the instructors in that department to popularize it and to secure the 

 confidence of the farmers in it. It has been suggested that interest in 

 this department of the colleges is usually found to be about in propor- 



