EDITOEIAL. i 



that branch of work. This shows how rapidly the idea of making 

 special provision for this form of teaching has been propagated. 

 The revenues in twenty-nine States during the fiscal year 1910 aggre- 

 gated nearly a half million dollars. 



But despite the progress, there are still many cases in which the de- 

 sire to meet the demand for extension teaching has developed far more 

 rapidly than the funds or the personnel for that purpose, with the 

 result that the experiment stations, where the extension work started, 

 have been burdened beyond reasonable limits. Relative to this the 

 committee on station organization and policy sounded a note of 

 warning in its report. It pointed out that " there never was a time 

 when the stations needed to be more circumspect and look more 

 closely to their scientific reputation and even public appreciation 

 than now. * * * Xo maintain a high and reliable grade of work 

 is a principle incumbent upon all stations, not only for the general 

 cause, but for their own safety as well." 



Neither the demonstration work nor the police work, it was urged, 

 must be allowed to encroach upon the acquisition of knowledge, 

 but there must be a clear distinction between propaganda and investi- 

 gation, between the discovery of principles and the dissemination 

 of their applications to practice. " The station administration must 

 ever keep in mind that the reason for existence and the chief useful- 

 ness of the stations depend upon their keeping true to the main pur- 

 pose for which they were established, the scientific investigation of 

 the problems relating to agriculture." This is a strong position 

 and well taken. It lies at the very foundation of success in the sta- 

 tion work. Thoroughgoing investigation, uninterrupted by outside 

 demands, must be allowed to go on to furnish the basis for collegiate 

 teaching and extension work alike. 



The movement for a celebration of the semicentennial of the 

 passage of the first Morrill Act received a further impetus and in- 

 dorsement at the Washington meeting. 



At the convention of the Association of American Agricultural 

 Colleges and Experiment Stations in Washington two years ago, 

 attention was called to the fact that the fiftieth anniversary of the 

 passage of the act establishing the land-grant colleges, and likewise 

 of the fundamental law under which the United States Department 

 of Agriculture was organized, will occur in 1912, and that that year 

 will also mark the twenty-fifth anniversay of the passage of the 

 Hatch Act. The association expressed its belief that these anniver- 

 saries should be adequately recognized by a great gathering of those 

 interested in all phases of agricultural education, and by the presenta- 

 tion of a program covering the work of agricultural research, of 

 instruction to students in colleges and schools, and of extension 

 67374°— No. 1—11 2 



