EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXXII. March, 1915. No. 4. 



A few years ago a speaker at a meeting of the Association of 

 American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations declared 

 that the great need of the experiment stations was for thoughtful 

 reflection and consideration— the opportunity for deliberation and 

 study. The need is as great to-day as it was then, possibly more 

 so. It is one of the handicaps which remains to be corrected. 



While there has been considerable progress toward a differentia- 

 tion of duties and of personnel in our colleges and stations, the pro- 

 tection of the investigator from distractions and interruptions, and 

 from demands of many kinds outside his special field, is still quite 

 incomplete. The effects of it are a heavy burden on our research 

 activity, a load it seems hard to shake off. The result is reflected 

 in the nature of the work, the extent of its constructive character, 

 the degree of its completeness and finality as far as it goes. The 

 growth of the agricultural work and of appropriations for it has 

 not always meant a correspondingly larger opportunity for substan- 

 tial investigation. It has been so rapid and many-sided that con- 

 centration in station work has been difficult and often impossible 

 for men of broad interests and sympathies. How to free station 

 men from the effects of this enlarged activity in the college without 

 divorcing them too completely from it, and thus depriving them of 

 the suggestion and inspiration it may bring, is a vexed question. 



For one thing, the station men are in the midst of the whole tur- 

 moil of college activit)^, and hence are drawn into it or affected by 

 it unless they have unusual powers of concentration. And most men 

 lack that power or ability; it is pointed ta as one of the defects 

 of our present training, and it is noticeable in station work because 

 the need of it there stands out so prominently. It is a power to be 

 studiously cultivated and encouraged, especially in those to whom 

 the acquisition of knowledge is assigned. Failure to do this has led 

 men to acquire standards which are a serious handicap as produc- 

 tive investigators. The habit of doing many things, of starting 

 more than can be properly carried on, of having a hand in a gi-eat 

 variety of enterprises, of being in close touch with many people 

 within and without the institution, of having a large correspondence 



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