SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 141 



are not made to order. They are an evolution that is by no 

 means rapid. We say, and with truth, that age alone brings to 

 a college the atmosphere most congenial to educational results 

 of the highest value, and institutions of research develop and 

 ripen no less slowly. Moreover, a large body of real investiga- 

 tors is not summoned in a day or in a year from among the mass 

 of educated men. The real investigator must have what we 

 speak of as initiative, fundamentally a natural quality that has 

 been trained and developed in an atmosphere of scientific inquiry. 

 Such men are not abundant. They are slowly gathered about 

 any given center and their selection calls for the divining-rod 

 rather than the dragnet. 



Again, investigators in certain fields of agricultural research 

 should be something more than mere technicians in science. 

 They should be ripened men who see relations broadly, men 

 who know affairs as well as principles. To be sure, agricultural 

 problems relate to the common things of everyday life, but this 

 in no way lessens their depth and complexity or the severity 

 and thoroughness of the methods necessary to correct 

 conclusions. 



The difficulty, then, where endowments for research have in- 

 creased by million-dollar steps, has been to secure a correspond- 

 ing equipment of men with a genius for observation, who have 

 ripened into usefulness, especially when we have so few institu- 

 tions that are giving adequate training for scientific inquiry in 

 agricultural directions. The fact is, funds applied to agricultural 

 research have at times been increased so fast and on such a 

 tremendous scale, though never beyond the needs of agriculture, 

 as to exceed the possibilities of a normal and sound scientific 

 growth correspondingly rapid and extensive. It is my judg- 

 ment, which you may estimate as a purely personal point of view 

 if you like, that agriculture has no right to ask for larger sums of 

 public money to be used in the study of its problems until there 

 are available more men who are adequately equipped for the 



