8 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



teaching in agriculture. It also favored inviting the institutions of 

 agricultural education in foreign countries to participate in such a 

 celebration. 



The Secretary of Agriculture has indorsed the cooperative formu- 

 lation of plans for such a celebration, and designated the Director of 

 this Office to rei:)resent him in the matter. The latter, acting in 

 cooperation with a representative from the executive committee, pre- 

 sented a tentative plan for an international congress of agricultural 

 education to be held in Washington in September, 1912. It is pro- 

 posed to hold the congress in cooperation with the International 

 Commission of Agricultural Education, organized at the second In- 

 ternational Congress of Agricultural Education, and the tentative 

 assent of that commission has been secured. The plan places the 

 congress under the patronage of the Government of the United 

 States, through which invitations to participate may be extended to 

 foreign governments and institutions. Sessions occupjdng five days 

 are contemplated, with excursions to points of interest in Washing- 

 ton and vicinity and to agricultural colleges and experiment stations 

 to occur before and after the congress. 



Definite provision is made for the presentation of the history and 

 work of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations in this 

 country and of the United States Department of Agriculture, to- 

 gether with that of similar institutions in other countries. Higher, 

 secondary, elementary, and extension education in agriculture will 

 be included in the scope of the general and sectional meetings. The 

 matter was left by the association in the hands of a committee of 

 five members, to be appointed by the executive committee of the 

 association, and five by the Secretary of Agriculture. 



The holding of such a congress, to be made international in char- 

 acter, will call public attention to the remarkable development of a 

 half century in this branch of technical education and in the investi- 

 gation of the basic industry of the country. Practically the whole 

 movement for the promotion of agriculture by investigation and by 

 teaching is encompassed by this period, and in that time the methods 

 and the basis have been almost entirely worked out. No less im- 

 portant has been the propagation of a public sentiment and con- 

 fidence to support and sustain such a movement and make possible 

 the present stage of development. 



There have been two international congresses of agricultural edu- 

 cation, in neither of which has the United States figured very con- 

 spicuously. As the theater of perhaps the greatest activity at pres- 

 ent, it seems a fitting place for the staging of the third international 

 congress, to celebrate the semicentennial of the birth of scientific 

 agriculture on this continent. 



