8 . TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. 
than which nothing is of greater importance to the dwellers in 
our cities; boundaries have been set to the depredations of many 
fungus and insect pests that otherwise would devastate orchard 
-and garden, and best of all the new basis of agricultural practice 
demands a high order of intelligence on the part of the practitioner. 
The supreme test of any movement that we call progress is the 
quality of its reaction upon men and women and nothing will per- 
manently elevate and dignify agriculture that does not uplift the 
intellectual and moral status of those who dwell in the open country. 
Surely the changes that have come to agriculture will bear this 
test and I am glad to believe that this institution has had some 
small part in what has been accomplished. 
Permit me a word concerning the policy around which the Sta- 
tion’s activities are centered. A prominent newspaper in comment- 
ing on this occasion stated that our Station “has done its work in 
a quiet way.” I am grateful that this institution has so impressed 
itself upon an observing editorial mind. Some of us have little 
respect for science with a brass band attachment, for it savors of 
sensationalism and chicanery. We place our faith rather in those 
who abide in the atmosphere of conservative scholarship, who, 
working in a patient and truth-loving spirit, find their satisfying 
reward in advancing knowledge. 
THE REAL FUNCTION. 
But what do we regard as the real function of this institution? 
The State undertakes to do three things for agriculture, investigate, 
teach and enforce law. In co-operation with our sister station at 
Ithaca, it is for us to investigate, but what we should do is often 
seriously handicapped by what we are asked to do. Just now we 
are in danger that investigation will be displaced by popular demon- 
stration. A strenuous and widespread movement is now in progress 
for the exploitation of agricultural knowledge, sometimes, I fear, 
without proper discrimination as to what knowledge is soundly 
ripened. It is a question, too, whether in this movement we are 
always recognizing the boundaries of individual initiative and 
responsibility. Whatever is done for the farmer or any other class 
should have as its chief end the cultivation of individual grasp and 
power and governmental aid should go no farther than to secure 
this result. But because of this trend of effort it requires courage, 
sometimes it seems hardly possible, for us to put aside these activi- 
ties that most quickly react upon the public minds, and by so doing, 
