762 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1039 



qualified by traming and experience for their work 

 and with practically no facilities for their proper 

 training in the future. 



Here and there are schools which have rendered 

 good service by equipping instructors in manual 

 training, but it is safe to say that at the present 

 time not a half dozen schools exist in the United 

 States which afford an adequate opportunity to se- 

 cure thoroughgoing preparation for the teaching of 

 trade and industrial subjects. Excellent as has 

 been the technical preparation which the state 

 colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts have 

 given to their students, many of them have not as 

 yet developed departments of education adequate 

 to the task of training prospective teachers either 

 of agriculture or the mechanic arts in the admin- 

 istrative and teaching problems of the vocational 

 school. The comparatively poor support given to 

 this feature of their work by some of the agricul- 

 tural and mechanical colleges is shown by the fact 

 than out of an appropriation of more than $2,600,- 

 000 made to them by Congress under the Match 

 and Nelson Acts for the year 1912-13, these col- 

 leges spent less than $34,000 "for the prepara- 

 tion of teachers in the elements of agriculture and 

 mechanic arts." 



In their teaching departments the agricul- 

 tural colleges do not need any longer to bid 

 for great numbers of students. The problem 

 rather is to determine more definitely than 

 hitherto what classes of students the colleges 

 should undertake to train and then to use their 

 available funds in providing the most efficient 

 courses of instruction to meet the require- 

 ments of such students. The colleges can now 

 greatly aid in the proper development of the 

 general system of education in agriculture and 

 other vocational subjects, which sooner or later 

 will permeate our public school system, by 

 assuming more strongly a policy of exclusion 

 as regards students not qualified to profit by 

 college instruction. Much needs to be done 

 to correct a widespread popular notion that 

 these colleges ought to do all that is necessary 

 for the state to do as regards the teaching of 

 agriculture and other vocational subjects. 

 Unless the colleges themselves cut out these 

 features of their present work which are really 

 outside their province and devote themselves 

 more strongly to those things, such as the 

 preparation of investigators, teachers and ex- 



tension workers, which should permanently 

 constitute their chief functions, they will 

 subject themselves to increasing criticism from 

 the more intelligent body of their constitu- 

 ents. They will also surrender some of the 

 highest privileges of leadership in the great 

 educational movement now in progress in this 

 country. 



This association has been greatly interested 

 in the promotion of graduate study in agricul- 

 ture and has practically shown this interest 

 by the maintenance of the biennial short- 

 term graduate school of agriculture, the 

 last session of which was successfully held at 

 the college of agriculture of the University 

 of Missouri. Some of our colleges have made 

 a good beginning of regular graduate courses. 

 Others are not yet in a position to undertake 

 such courses in a satisfactory way. May it 

 not be the duty of this association to take up 

 this matter more thoroughly and through its 

 standing committee on graduate study extend 

 the cooperative efforts of the colleges to pro- 

 vide graduate courses for all students through 

 the country who are qualified to pursue them? 

 There certainly should be soon a number of 

 centers of graduate study in agriculture in 

 the United States which will be broader in 

 scope and more thorough in equipment and 

 teaching than any the world has yet seen. 

 Travel and study abroad will always be bene- 

 ficial to a certain extent for persons aiming 

 to become experts but the United States should 

 have graduate schools of agriculture which 

 will not only be thoroughly satisfactory to her 

 own students, but also highly attractive to 

 those of other countries. We can not be con- 

 tent as long as any considerable number of our 

 agricultural investigators and college teachers 

 have had only an undergraduate course. 

 Under existing circumstances these men 

 should be encouraged in every possible way to 

 extend their studies after they enter the em- 

 ploy of our agricultural institutions. But 

 stronger efforts should also be made to en- 

 courage the taking of graduate courses before 

 entrance on active professional careers. And 

 the bars of entrance to research or teaching 

 positions in our colleges and the department 



