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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1052 



final history is written, the lot of the man 

 on the land will be the saddest chapter. 



But in the nineteenth century, the man 

 at the bottom began really to be recognized 

 politically. This recognition is of two 

 kinds, the use that a government can make 

 in its own interest of a highly efficient 

 husbandry, and the desire to give the 

 husbandman full opportunity and full 

 justice. I hope that in these times the lat- 

 ter motive always prevails. It is the only 

 course of safety. 



We have developed the institutions on 

 public funds to train the farmer and to 

 give him voice. These institutions are of 

 vast importance in the founding of a people. 

 The folk are to be developed in themselves 

 rather than by class legislation, or by favor 

 of government, or by any attitude of benev- 

 olence from without. And now, the great 

 extension law, for which so many men and 

 women have worked so long, is a fact, and 

 means are to be provided whereby the 

 farmer may find help at his own door. A 

 new agency in the world has now received 

 the sanction of the people, and we are just 

 beginning to organize it. 



It is a noble expression of confidence in 

 the persons who have prepared the people 

 for this departure, that the legislation 

 should have been so generous and so com- 

 plete. 



The days of our propaganda are passed. 

 No longer are we agricultural crusaders, 

 seeking to get a hearing with the powers 

 that control, making the work felt in the 

 nation, energizing the farming people to 

 express themselves. I fear that this 

 changed relation is not understood by some 

 persons ; and hereupon we come to a crucial 

 and perhaps to a dangerous situation. 

 Some of us have not expected the recogni- 

 tion to come so soon or so completely, and 

 it may be difficult for us to understand 

 what has happened or to readjust our ac- 

 tivities. 



There are three phases of the situation 

 that seem to call for special consideration 

 at this turn in affairs, one of which has no 

 novelty, and the second and third of which 

 appear not to have received sufficient at- 

 tention. 



I. THE NECESSITY OP FUNDAMENTAL KNOWL- 

 EDGE 



Although there has necessarily been 

 something of the effort at conversion, the 

 country-life movement is not a propaganda. 

 It is the expression of a rapidly crystalliz- 

 ing desire to make rural life all that it is 

 capable to become, and to understand and 

 to utilize in the best way all the natural 

 products of the earth. 



All this requires knowledge; and knowl- 

 edge of this kind demands careful inquiry. 

 There must be a certain relation or equa- 

 tion between the research effort and the 

 teaching effort. The enlargement of one 

 ought to be conditioned on the enlarge- 

 ment of the other; and certainly we ought 

 to know before we teach. I hope that the 

 new extension work will demand a great 

 stimulation of research. No subject makes 

 great headway, no people makes great 

 progress, unless it rests on investigation 

 and discovery and feels the stimulation of 

 exploration in fresh fields. 



Particularly do we need the balance and 

 the check in extension teaching in agricul- 

 ture, where the field is so diverse, the peo- 

 ple so numerous and so scattered, the teach- 

 ers so variously trained, and the traditional 

 errors so many. Extension work is not 

 propaganda; it is teaching where the peo- 

 ple are rather than where the matriculated 

 students are; and while it may not go so 

 deep, it must be as true and as well stand- 

 ardized to ascertained fact as is the other 

 kind of teaching. The vitality of the exten- 

 sion teaching, as of any other teaching in 

 natural science, will depend on the body of 

 exact knowledge that lies behind it. 



