706 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol. 37 



since in the larger universities they are quite often enrolled in gen- 

 eral graduate schools instead of in the colleges of agriculture. For 

 eighteen institutions reporting graduate students in agriculture in 

 1916, the aggregate enrollment has dropped from 410 to 202, or over 

 50 per cent. This condition will doubtless continue or perhaps be 

 aggravated, since most of these students are of draft age and open- 

 ings for active employment were never more numerous. 



Another phase of the matter which needs consideration is the 

 subsequent dropping out of the students who have returned to col- 

 lege. Hardly an issue of a college paper has appeared this fall with- 

 out items announcing such withdrawals. Many of these are for 

 military service, but others are often for less vital reasons and should 

 be kept at a minimum. As the committee on instruction in agricul- 

 ture pointed out in its recent report to the Association of American 

 Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, " in this country 

 and abroad, agriculture is now recognized to be of importance second 

 only to the military service, even under war conditions. On this 

 account there is a heavier burden of responsibility upon the young 

 men of our agricultural colleges — students and graduates alike — 

 who have not been called to military service. The burden is greater 

 not only because of the demand for greater production, but also 

 because of the smaller numl)er of young men availal)le for positions 

 as teachers, as specialists, and as organizers in field demonstration 

 work. It is, therefore, highly important that the agricultural col- 

 lege students who are not yet subject to the draft, as well as those 

 who have been excused from military service, remain in college and 

 make the best of every opportunity to prepare themselves for these 

 heavier burdens, and it is incumbent upon the colleges of agricul- 

 ture not only to urge this point of view, but to provide for these 

 young men the best teaching and the most thorough training to 

 be had." 



Something can doubtless be done in many colleges to provide 

 special courses to meet the emergency needs. Thus, as regards the 

 training of teachers, the same committee states that whereas at the 

 outbreak of the war there were upwards of a thousand college- 

 trained young men teaching agriculture in schools below college 

 grade, the number has now been seriously depleted, while the 

 development of work under the Federal Vocational Education Aid 

 Act alone will create a demand for several hundred additional 

 instructors with such training. It is suggested that the colleges 

 can do much to " prevent the serious lowering of standards by 

 increasing their facilities for training undergraduates for the teach- 

 ing profession, by conducting emergency courses for teachers now 

 in service, and by the intensive training along agricultural lines of 

 college graduates in arts and science courses." 



