This Association has repeatedly endorsed the proposal. Some 

 institutions in the country have already established and organized 

 these stations. This is following the precedent by which certain 

 Agricultural Experiment Stations were established prior to the 

 Hatch Act. When such stations are provided for by law we shall 

 know whether they are to be regarded like the Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations as subdivisions of the Colleges of Agriculture 

 and Mechanic Arts or whether they are to be separate institutions 

 under separate form of government. In no case could they be 

 subdivisions of a College of Engineering, since these Colleges are 

 not legal entities, but administrative subdivisions of Colleges or 

 Universities, although it will be freely granted that their manage- 

 ment would be under the direction of the teachers of Mechanic 

 Arts or Engineering just as now the Agricultural Experiment 

 Stations are chiefly under the direction of the men engaged in 

 agriculture. 



The Association therefore seems to be confronted with one or 

 two policies; first, to go back to the original idea of a Convention 

 representing the Colleges organized under the Act of 1862, with 

 subdivisions to be known either as Committees or Sections, 

 including all of the activities of these institutions or so many of 

 them as the Association may decide. Reference to this report 

 will disclose the fact that the Association has changed its mind 

 from time to time on this matter. The Committees on Botany, 

 Horticulture, and others have disappeared. The reason evidently 

 was that men engaged in scientific work preferred to have their 

 affiliations with scientific associations and could not well take 

 the time to attend both classes of organizations. It may be 

 pertinent to suggest that the movement over the entire country 

 toward the development of all sorts of scientific, administrative 

 and educational organizations and conventions makes a very 

 heavy draft upon the institutions. Teachers feel that they cannot 

 afford to pay their own expenses to all these conventions and the 

 institutions feel that they cannot afford to have so many men 

 absent from their ordinary duties for as much time as is necessary 

 to meet the demand for attendance. Besides, the matter of 

 expense is not inconsiderable. Reference to this report will show 

 that experience demonstrated that the Engineering men were not 

 made delegates to this Association with sufficient frequency 

 and regularity to give a section on Mechanic Arts the dignity 



ii 



