EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXXIV. June, 1916. Xo. 8. 



At the time the Hatch Act was passed in 1887, establishing the 

 agricultural experiment stations, no one but a seer could have 

 prophesied the growth and development which these institutions 

 were to undergo or the place they would occupy in the realm of 

 scientific investigation. In fact, it required a keen appreciation of 

 the possibilities of scientific research and a far-sighted vision of the 

 future needs of agriculture to sense the necessity of providing for 

 experiment stations at all. AVhy, it was asked, should the Federal 

 Government be called upon to found a system for experimentation 

 in agriculture when many persons were still stoutly maintaining that 

 successful farming required only common sense, muscle, and 

 machinery, and that science as applied to this most ancient of arts 

 was theoretical and unpractical and had little to do with the real 

 business of life ? 



Thirty years ago all research in the United States was relatively 

 restricted in scope and amount, and this country had, in fact, hardly 

 caught its spirit or import. Science itself still seemed to be a purely 

 academic affair which rarely bore any obvious relation to the prac- 

 tical world, and research was deemed a sort of intellectual exercise 

 for a special class. The rigid scholastic conception of pure science 

 as contrasted with applied science was widely prevalent. The ideal 

 investigator was thought of as a kind of crusader who enlisted with 

 almost religious fervor under the banner of truth, with the battle 

 cry of truth for truth's sake and science for science's sake; but too 

 often truth and science were regarded as purely abstractions in the 

 realm of ideas with no necessary connection with the world of con- 

 crete things. 



Eesearch gained a solid footing earliest in endowed colleges, uni- 

 versities, and institutions established for investigation in special 

 lines, but its development there was generally quite limited. It was 

 largely concerned with abstract propositions, and its activities were 

 regarded with curiosity rather than with comprehension or under- 

 standing. Least of all was it looked for at the agricultural colleges, 

 which were expected to interest and instruct their farmer constituents 

 through their model farms and superior live stock, and were thought 

 of by other classes of colleges as being distinctly elementary and 

 •vocational rather than for the broad advancement of learning. 



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