CONVENTION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 323 



grant colleges of this country. A high tribute was paid to the great 

 work of these institutions, which the speaker declared have given a 

 new conception of manual training and set the pace for scientific study 

 and experimentation in America. The application of their work he 

 pronounced far in excess of the original conception, and their experi- 

 ence and the methods which they have worked out have served as an 

 example to other countries. The speaker pictured the future of this 

 country — agricultural, industrial, and social — and along with it the 

 future development and position of the land-grant colleges, which he 

 conceived to be destined to occupy an increasingly prominent and 

 important part in promoting industrial development and in contributing 

 to the advancement of both general and applied science. 



Pursuant to a resolution adopted by the association last year, pro- 

 vision was made for memorial addresses on the late President W. L. 

 Broun, of Alabama, and the late President W. M. Beardshear, of Iowa. 

 An address on the public life and services of Doctor Broun was deliv- 

 ered by President P. H. Mell, of South Carolina. Doctor Gunsaulus, 

 of Chicago, who was to have delivered the address on President 

 Beardshear, was prevented from being present, but he was requested 

 to furnish the manuscript of his address for publication. 



One of the most important items of business was the consideration 

 of the amendments to the constitution proposed at the Atlanta meeting. 

 These amendments had been before the association for a year, and were 

 adopted with practically no discussion. They provide for a reduction 

 in the number of sections to two, one on college work and administra- 

 tion and the other on experiment station work, three members of the 

 executive committee to be chosen by the first section and two by the 

 latter. No action on public and administrative questions is to be final 

 without the assent of the college section. There is provision for each 

 section to create such divisions as it ma}" find desirable, but no such 

 divisions have yet been made, and the report of the committee on the 

 organization of the new section for station work recommended that 

 for the present no such divisions be made. The section on horticulture 

 and botany, however, expressed a desire to continue its meetings in the 

 future, and appointed a committee to confer with the executive com- 

 mittee with reference to this matter. 



The reduction in the number of sections to two will necessarily 

 bring about a material change in the programme of these section 

 meetings. The committee on the organization of the new section for 

 station kwor recommended that the section be open to the considera- 

 tion of all phases of station activity, including matters of administra- 

 tion, and the discussion of methods and appliances of research, but 

 should not include the presentation of results of work as such, or of 

 general papers. The papers and discussions at a given convention are 

 to be concentrated upon one general subject, as a rule, and it is 

 expected that there will be a rotation of subjects from year to year, so 



11776— No. 4—03,-^3 



