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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 935 



that is needed to improve the outdoor rec- 

 reational life of our people. When a hun- 

 dred millions have been multiplied our 

 population will more and more need lead- 

 ership in the joy of living. Land will per- 

 mit of instruction, outdoor laboratory work 

 and practical experience in genetics, the 

 creation of new forms of plants and ani- 

 mals by breeding, and other intense forms 

 of agriculture and for recreation and out- 

 door art. Some of this can be so carried 

 out as to give inspiration to the millions of 

 sightseers from the states and from abroad. 



While much can be Jirranged in way of 

 part-time courses, as between the univer- 

 sity and the governmental bureaus, much 

 more of this practical mixing of real ex- 

 perience and schooling can be carried on in 

 cooperation with factories, farms and other 

 economic and professional work in all parts 

 of the country and abroad. The local uni- 

 versities can be a party to many of these 

 part-time courses. This will make it pos- 

 sible to use the government bureau work- 

 ers as teachers only rather incidentally. 

 It will permit the university and depart- 

 mental authorities to cooperate in the di- 

 vision of labor of its workers. In many 

 cases, in part owing to temperamental char- 

 acter, some workers should teach only; 

 others should work only at research. In 

 other eases the teacher or the experimenter 

 should do only a minimum of service in 

 another line than the one which is his or 

 her major interest. 



There will doubtless be found ways of 

 getting away from the idea that a national 

 university is primarily an agency to sup- 

 plement state and other local universities. 

 These institixtions too long have held the 

 high schools in line to serve the needs of 

 the few who enter the colleges and univer- 

 sities, rather than the needs of the many 

 who leave the high school and lower schools 

 to enter practical life, thus confining voca- 



tional education to the professions, as if 

 they had rights to be an aristocracy. The 

 service to the public will be the large work 

 of a national university, and service to the 

 local universities will be only a very im- 

 portant incident. 



For example, if the nation wants men 

 trained for its service it will not want to 

 confine itself to "master" graduates, espe- 

 cially if there are not a sufficient number 

 presenting themselves, or if these are not 

 of as good timber and promise as men 

 chosen in part from other sources. For ex- 

 ample, the State Department might desire 

 to provide that men grown up in the con- 

 sular and diplomatic service be given 

 special lines of instruction to further pre- 

 pare them for their work. The Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture might need a winter 

 school for its workers in farm demonstra- 

 tion, and for home extension teaching (it 

 is now in great need of the finished prod- 

 ucts of such a school). Moreover, such 

 bureaus as the Census, Agricultural Sta- 

 tistics, Fisheries, Indian Affairs and the 

 Geodetic Survey, require men which, owing 

 to the small need in any one state, are not 

 trained in local institutions. Such a na- 

 tional university would properly take time 

 by the forelock and prepare men for serv- 

 ice in international or world governmental 

 departments so as to be ready when world 

 peace comes. Thus the International Insti- 

 tute of Agriculture at Rome will require 

 men versed in world area crop statistics 

 and other similar service — and no univer- 

 sity has anticipated the demand for work- 

 ers along these lines. The public require- 

 ment runs all the way in grade from sec- 

 ondary to graduate work preparation. Then 

 there is the demand in the district for an 

 undergraduate institution, such as would 

 be provided if congress accede to the Dis- 

 trict's request for the privileges granted 

 each state under the A. and M. land grant 



