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cratic institutions. The principle is this: "Questions which concern 

 primarily and chiefly the people of the locality are to be left to the 

 determination of the locality ; questions which concern primarily and 

 chiefly the people of the nation are to be left to the determination of the 

 nation." 



No arguments are needed to uphold the assertion that a national 

 research agency sustained by national funds and backed by national 

 authority is an indispensable part of an efficiently organized arid com- 

 prehensive research effort. There is offered to such an agency an 

 almost unlimited field of large problems of national scope, calling for 

 broad and extended inquiry from different points of view, and requir- 

 ing heavy expenditures, elaborate equipment and long continued 

 study, which state agencies can hardly enter upon. At the same time 

 its efforts may be of special service, if wisely directed, in correlating the 

 results reached by the state institutions and in bringing about a better 

 understanding between workers in the same field, and it can also exert 

 a strong influence in favor of high standards of scientific work. 



On the other hand there is a field of service in the several states to 

 which the experiment stations seem to be peculiarly adapted. In 

 certain respects, such as their comprehension of local problems, their 

 constant and intimate touch with their own people and the economy 

 of effort through a nearby institution, the stations appear to have 

 distinct advantages over more remote agencies. 



It may be further said, that what might be called "individual 

 scientific problems," i.e., problems whose investigation lies within the 

 capacity of one or two investigators, may usually be taken up with 

 great advantage by an experiment station. It is also true that when a 

 station is connected with a large institution of learning and is therefore 

 in close touch with well equipped departments of science, it offers an 

 environment especially favorable to scientific spirit and opportunity. 



If these premises are correct, not only should the national agency 

 be enabled to exercise its peculiar functions with the highest efficiency 

 but the policy of developing the state experiment stations should be 

 continued in every possible way. The state should not be encouraged 

 to shirk the duty of developing its own means for agricultural progress 

 and defense. If the soils of a state are becoming depleted of their 

 fertility on account of irrational systems of agriculture, so that the 

 prosperity of the state is being threatened thereby, the state should be 

 made to feel that it must bestir itself and care for its own resources. It 

 would be an unwise policy for the national government to be continually 

 stepping in to protect a state from the results of its own folly. 

 Herbert Spencer observes that to protect men from the consequences 



