Februaey 8, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



127 



popular approval — do not of themselves 

 indicate a wise educational policy. The 

 great essentials of educational efiBciency 

 are intangible, and are found in the aims 

 toward which the organization and activi- 

 ties of the colleges and stations are directed. 

 In the case of state-supported institutions 

 efficiency may also be promoted or hamp- 

 ered in a large measure by the conditions 

 which are created through legislation and 

 through the rules and regulations of re- 

 lated administrative departments, whether 

 national or state. 



Before proceeding further in our dis- 

 cussion, let us bring before our minds some 

 of the essential purposes of agricultural 

 education and research and the conditions 

 that should be established within the insti- 

 tutions concerned, in order that this great 

 national adventure in education, so gener- 

 ously endowed from public funds, shall not 

 attain less than the largest possible results. 



"Without doubt, we can all agree to the 

 statement that agricultural education and 

 research should include in their scope 

 fundamental purposes common to all edu- 

 cation and research. No attempt at educa- 

 tion in any direction is worthy of a place 

 in our civilization which does not intensify 

 in the individual a sense of his obligation to 

 promote public welfare, elevate his moral 

 and intellectual quality and in so doing 

 enlarge his life opportunities and increase 

 his efficiencj" for communitj- service and 

 individual attainment. No research is 

 worthy of support that is superficial and 

 trivial and in failing to arrive at funda- 

 mental truth and sound conclusions estab- 

 lishes an unsafe basis for practise. This 

 means that agricultural education and re- 

 search must be dominated by the ideals, 

 infused with the spirit and strengthened 

 by the conditions, that past experience has 

 shown t« be essential to the advancement 

 of knowledge and to the training of young 



men and women for the largest usefulness. 

 The subject-matter and the tools of edu- 

 cation and research may change, but the 

 point of attack of the teacher and investi- 

 gator should be the development of patri- 

 otic impulse, sound knowledge, elevated 

 human character and individual efficiency 

 and through these results promote human 

 welfare. The influence of education is re- 

 flected chiefly in its product of truth and 

 trained minds. 



It is for these reasons that some of us 

 hold that the great and insistent problems 

 of the colleges of agriculture are not pri- 

 marily related to institutional participa- 

 tion in the social and economic reorganiza- 

 tion of rural communities, but are con- 

 cerned first of all with the training of 

 young men and women. It is a serious 

 question whether these colleges have not 

 expended energy and means in educational 

 propaganda which could more wisely have 

 been applied to increasing internal effi- 

 ciency. There are many reasons for hold- 

 ing that community life will reach a sound 

 and enduring social and economic status 

 only when its progress is self-initiated and 

 self-directed and possibly we shall some 

 time discover that this very laudable im- 

 pulse on the part of institutions to be of 

 public service has been carried too far in 

 attempting to impose rapidly upon the 

 rural people conditions that can only be 

 reached through that gradual education 

 and development attained in no other way 

 than through community effort. 



The avenue through which agricultural 

 education and research will react upon 

 community life most effectively will not be 

 elaborate platform and literarj' propa- 

 ganda, but the continual personal contact 

 of the people with minds adequately 

 trained for leadership. If this be so, then 

 the product of the colleges should be lead- 

 ers. Do you say this is obvious? Grant- 



