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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1099 



higher grade, nor is it desirable that they 

 should do so. They do not necessarily rep- 

 resent the last word in this field of public 

 service. "We must soon begin to think of 

 another range. 



Private philanthropy will find this in- 

 viting and useful field. Universities of 

 many kinds will enter it as of their own 

 domain. The land-grant institutions will 

 not lose their influence and standing: on 

 the contrary, they ought to begin to pro- 

 duce the leaders for the other develop- 

 ment, and specially must they be prepared 

 to accept the other institutions, when those 

 institutions are really ready and worthy, 

 and give them encouragement ; and in par- 

 ticular must they not sit as censors. 



These new developments being foreseen 

 and I think inevitable, then a modus vivendi 

 must be found in advance. The first de- 

 sirability, as I have suggested, is an atti- 

 tude of encouragement for all good effort 

 in teaching and research ; the nest essential 

 is a willingness on the part of the land- 

 grant institutions to divide the field, or at 

 least to share it, so far as they can do so 

 and not surrender their legal or necessary 

 rights or curtail their usefulness. No one 

 would want these institutions restricted ; in 

 fact, this must not be, since they have been 

 set aside to do a great work in a democracy. 

 The other institutions, those not teaching 

 agriculture on the land-grant basis, should 

 recognize that the public-maintained col- 

 leges are now established in their field, that 

 this field belongs to them by law, that these 

 colleges are doing their work nobly, and 

 that the people will resent interference; 

 and they must remember the fine disdain in 

 which the colleges of agriculture have been 

 held in times past. These other institu- 

 tions should not attempt to duplicate the 

 work and equipment of the land-grant col- 

 leges ; they should enter fields of their own. 

 The effort to secure state support for such 

 institutions is a perversion; it introduces 



the very element of competition and con- 

 flict that it is so necessary to avoid, and the 

 institutions also thereby lose their special 

 opportunity. Neither will these institu- 

 tions, if they are wise, enter the field to se- 

 cure advertisement for any university or 

 any body, counting on the rising interest 

 in agriculture; the land-grant colleges are 

 fortunately too strong for such a purpose 

 to gain much headway. 



What these fields are, for the non-land- 

 grant endowed institutions, may not be 

 easy to forecast in detail; but if the insti- 

 tutions desire to find such a field, the dan- 

 ger of duplication, confiict and hostility 

 will thereby be avoided. In fact, these 

 other institutions can never acquire the 

 place they ought to find and which they 

 have a right to enter, by any movement of 

 attack or of imitation. The example of 

 the untrammeled spirit, which they ought 

 to contribute to governmental enterprises, 

 must of course be born in freedom and in 

 great good wiU. 



Already have we discussed the opportu- 

 nity in a liberal-arts college or in a univer- 

 sity for a department of agriculture. "We 

 may now consider what an endowed institu- 

 tion, established separately in the agricul- 

 tural field, including horticulture, forestry, 

 and other rural work, may undertake. 

 There is opportunity and need in abun- 

 dance in the training-school field, but we 

 are not now considering this range. In the 

 college and university range, it is probably 

 not worth the while to undertake a new 

 effort "to make farmers," although this 

 particular fallacy seems to be very attrac- 

 tive to many men. 



1. If the hypothetical institution is to 

 engage in research, it had better not at- 

 tempt to cover the field of agriculture, as 

 the colleges of agriculture are obliged to 

 cover it in order to answer the needs of the 

 commonwealth; it had better confine it- 

 self to a problem or a set of closely related 



