Februabt 2&, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



303 



fall to the waste-basket, it must be remem- 

 bered that even the best seeds may fall on 

 stony ground. I hope that the demand 

 among the people for a greatly popular- 

 ized bulletin literature — if such demand 

 exists — ^may soon cease; at all events, we 

 need not eater to it. The essential values 

 and also the best scientific mode of pre- 

 sentation should be preserved. It must 

 be remembered that the mode of presenta- 

 tion has teaching value in itself; the sub- 

 ject-matter may have only information- 

 value. 



Other agencies than literature, partic- 

 ularly than news-agency literature, must 

 be found to carry the work to the people 

 and to apply it there. The best results 

 will come in the localities when the people 

 begin to organize to receive the help. The 

 people need more than pieces of informa- 

 tion: they need stimulation and guidance. 

 "We look on the farm-bureau movement to 

 accomplish very much in this way, if the 

 motive power in it is kept with the people. 



The natural and rational unfolding of 

 the work as it issues from the institution, 

 by means of its own agencies under its 

 own control, will in time cover the field 

 effectively. It is a great gain when any 

 public institution or establishment, while 

 still serving the people feelingly in a spirit 

 of true democracy, passes the restless fever 

 of publicity before the restlessness be- 

 comes chronic, and lays out a plan calcu- 

 lated to reach the results and then lets 

 the process work itself out. 



in. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE NEW WORK 



The great Extension Act brings what is 

 essentially a new policy into American 

 educational procedure. Only in the me- 

 chanic arts and agriculture, as they are 

 founded on the Land-Grant Act of 1862, 

 do we have a national system of education ; 

 but even in this case the federal super- 



vision in the states was at first none or 

 nominal. With the passage of subsequent 

 acts the federal control has become more 

 pronounced. 



Undoubtedly we have profited very 

 much as a people by the many political, 

 educational, legal and other experiments 

 of the different states. We now have 

 forty-eight of these great experiment sta- 

 tions — the forty-eight stars on the flag — 

 each one attempting to work out a govern- 

 ment that shall best meet the needs of its 

 people. We should have gained much in 

 regularity of procedure, and perhaps in 

 economy of funds and in what is called 

 efficiency, if our educational system had at 

 first been nationalized ; but we should have 

 missed much more than we now have 

 gained. This nationalized extension work 

 proceeding in detail in every community 

 in the Union will raise essentially a new 

 principle, for us, in educational policy. 



It is the common assumption that if 

 congress appropriates money, congress (or 

 the federal government) should control all 

 the expenditure of it. I think this is a 

 doubtful, if, in fact, not a dangerous doc- 

 trine. The money belongs to the people, 

 and there should be no reason why con- 

 gress may not appropriate some of it back 

 to the people. It may be expended in the 

 people's interest quite as well by states as 

 by the federal government. Of course it 

 should be honestly expended and for the 

 purposes for which it is appropriated, but 

 these are matters of detail that ought not 

 to be difficult to arrange. Specially do we 

 need some centralized power for the con- 

 trol of delinquencies, an office that the 

 United States Department of Agriculture 

 has sometimes been called upon to exert 

 with much benefit; but this is a very dif- 

 ferent matter from controlling or making 

 the programs in the beginning. It is very 

 important in our great experiment in 



