7.H<) EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



At length a few ambitious Leaders set to work to see how the 

 farmers' hoys could be gathered into the college for a short period, in 

 order to get an entering wedge and to demonstrate more widely the 

 value of technical training in agriculture. Grades and entrance 

 requirements were swept aside and new facilities were provided. 

 Laboratories were opened for dairying and farm physics and live 

 stock, in addition to those which had previously existed for the 

 sciences, because the inadequate preparation of the boys and the short 

 time they were to spend at the college required that they be taught 

 quite largely through their eyes and their hands. 



The experiment was an ultimate success. The press praised the 

 work and helped to advertise it, and the fanners began to talk about it. 

 A new era had begun. There was an awakening not only of interest 

 and of confidence in agricultural education, but also to the require- 

 ments for properly teaching the subject. Agriculture must be differ- 

 entiated; instead of one man being looked to as the personification of 

 all the agricultural information which the institution had to offer, there 

 should be an agricultural faculty. To provide such a faculty and ade- 

 quate laboratories and equipment required money, much more than 

 the agricultural department had ever been given before. This aroused 

 opposition again, and was looked upon as extravagant and ill advised. 

 It was pointed out how much more it cost to educate a student in agri- 

 culture than in literature or the classics or general science. 



But the influence of the experiment station in differentiating agri- 

 culture was now working, and the necessities of its work soon called 

 for men in different subdivisions of the subject. Gradually the money 

 was secured in a few of the States, thanks to the energy and persever- 

 ance and enthusiasm of a few of the leaders, who gathered around 

 them strong and intelligent men to aid in their campaign with State 

 legislatures and public sentiment. 



The success of the few stimulated other States to action, and inspired 

 confidence and courage in demanding creditable buildings and support, 

 and in putting the course on a new basis. Men came to the front now 

 who had caught the idea of the new education and who were not afraid, 

 until the movement became widespread and its influence national. 



There can be no doubt that the agricultural experiment station and 

 the short courses were very potent factors in bringing about this new 

 era and in making the higher development possible. They served to 

 arouse interest in the subject and to assert its needs, they confirmed 

 the value of agricultural education, showed the relations of science to 

 practice, and enlarged the fund of information upon which the agri- 

 cultural course rested. They made instruction in agriculture seem 

 not only reasonable but essential to a clear understanding of the 

 progress which was making in applied agricultural science. And they 

 demonstrated the need of specialization in the instruction force. 



