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of their own folly is to fill the world with fools. The preservation of 

 local initiative and the sense of local responsibility is a consideration of 

 the highest importance. Statistics show clearly that many states have 

 recognized their obligations, over half of the income of the Experiment 

 Stations and a still larger proportion of that of the land grant colleges 

 being derived from sources other than national. There can be no 

 question in the mind of any one familiar with the trend of affairs that, 

 unless a mistaken policy shall operate to encourage dependence on the 

 national government, the states will increasingly care for their local 

 agricultural problems, leaving the appropriations by the national 

 government to be applied to the investigation of questions of general 

 importance. Apart from the above considerations, a station should 

 have the encouragement of full and unhampered opportunity in the 

 field where it is established and the inspiration of knowing that its 

 agricultural constituency is looking to it as the immediate source of 

 assistance. Anything that diverts the attention of farmers from their 

 home institution and lessens their interest in it is most discouraging to 

 a station staff and it can but weaken its hold upon public interest. 



The foregoing discussion relates mainly to progress in the art of 

 agriculture, which is, after all, not the fundamental result that should 

 be sought. The increasing dissemination of scientific knowledge of agri- 

 culture in the past twenty-five years has been so successful in adding to 

 the agricultural wealth of the country that we are, perhaps, in danger of 

 regarding this as its chief function. Such a materialistic idea is to be 

 profoundly deprecated. The true field of operation of these govern- 

 mental agencies is the whole circle of the farmer's life, not his acres 

 alone. The prime object is to develop men, not merely to make crops. 



The following quotation from an address by Professor L. H. Bailey 

 of Cornell University, states this principle most clearly and emphati- 

 cally : 



"Every one of us, I am sure, feels that good institutions will not 

 save us. Society can be saved and advanced only by increasing the 

 number of competent persons who stand on their own feet. The pur- 

 pose of every good country-life institution is to develop persons who 

 are able to stand alone. We must be careful that we do not develop a 

 man who will go about his farming leaning with one arm on the govern- 

 ment and with the other on the college and experiment station, and at 

 every turn asking for recipes in franked packages. It is not the busi- 

 ness of the government to test every farmer's seeds, but to teach every 

 farmer to test his own seeds." 



"I think, therefore, that no agricultural work, public or private, no 

 institution, state or national, no movement educational or philanthropic, 

 has adequate justification unless its own purpose or effect is to allow 

 native individual responsibility 'and initiative to develop in the man 



