THE STATE AND THE FARMER: TEACHING AGRICULTURE 

 TO THE PEOPLE OF A STATE. 



Dr. William D. Hurd, 



Director of the Extension Service, Massachusetts Agricultural College, 

 Amherst, Mass. 



I have come to speak with some hesitation. I don't want anyone to 

 get. the idea here that I have come to flaunt the work we are doing in 

 Massachusetts, because I realize in the four states that are represented 

 here today you have agricultural colleges which I presume are doing 

 work of a similar character. 



I thought you folks would look on agriculture in our state as a joke, 

 but after Mr. Harris's figures which he gave us I think I need not make 

 any further reference to his remarks on agriculture on that stormy and 

 rock-bound coast. 



When the Honorable Justin S. Morrill introduced into Congress, 

 and Mr. Lincoln in 1862 signed the bill bearing the former's name: 

 "giving land to support and maintain in each state at least one 

 college, where the leading object should be, without excluding the classics 

 and other scientific branches, . . . to teach such branches of learning 

 as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts ... in order to 

 promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the 

 several pursuits and professions of life" there was no doubt in the minds 

 of these men that these colleges should make themselves useful to all the 

 people who supported them as well as to the few hundred students fortu- 

 nate enough to be able to receive their benefits within the walls of the 

 college buildings and campus limits. 



For twenty-five or thirty years these colleges confined their efforts 

 largely to two lines — the teaching of college students, and research and 

 experimental work provided for by subsequent acts of Congress — both 

 lines absolutely necessary to future agricultural progress. 



But as time went on, economic conditions changed in this country. 

 A popular clamor was raised, demanding that the knowledge possessed by 

 the scientists in our colleges and the results of the research work of our 

 experiment stations should be carried out by practical demonstrations 

 to the man on the land. Today the great problem in our agricultural edu- 

 cation is not the teaching of college students, nor the conducting of the 

 research work in our scientific laboratories, but rather the devising of 

 sane, dignified and systematic methods of extension teaching whereby 



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