SCIENCE 



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



sympathy and on statesmanship could oc- 

 cupy a great place, if any board of gov- 

 ernors were wise enough to avoid the 

 cranks. It certainly would avoid all red- 

 tape and all routine-men and aU perplexing 

 alliances. We may well look to govern- 

 ment to coordinate the fiscal business and 

 to some extent the projects of the public in- 

 stitutions, but we can not expect it to bring 

 together the spiritual elements that alone 

 can make a movement or a people great. 

 Spiritual forces are always spontaneous. 



I want to see at least one broad founda- 

 tion, separately placed, certainly not in 

 Washington, highly endowed, that mil at- 

 tract the best spirits somewhat independ- 

 ently of the subjects that they teach, to 

 enable these men and women to give of 

 themselves in a composite faculty, and to 

 represent the best leadership in statecraft 

 and other subjects as related to agriculture 

 and country life. We are so accustomed to 

 the formally regular program of the exist- 

 ing college of agriculture that an outline 

 like this may seem to be indefinite and to 

 lack cohesion, but it is not so very differ- 

 ent from the old idea of a university; in 

 fact, it might be known as a university 

 founded on the earth, on rural life, with 

 its students mostly graduates and not very 

 numerous, with a good nature-background 

 and not top-heavy with technical equip- 

 ment. 



THE CONCLUSION OP THE WHOLE MATTER 



My presentation is of four motives: (1) 

 To extend the rural teaching, founded on 

 agriculture, into general and liberal arts in- 

 stitutions, to the end that it may be made a 

 means of culture, a force for training in 

 citizenship, and a broadening influence in 

 the institutions; (2) to indicate a way ia 

 which private endowments or enterprises of 

 college and university grade may be hope- 

 fully made in agriculture; (3) to suggest 



the need of non-governmental movements 

 which shall introduce into this field the 

 same balance and counter-balance of forces 

 that is essential in other fields for the main- 

 tenance of government that arises from the 

 people, for not even in a democracy should 

 all education be state-maintained; (4) to 

 conserve the independence and the oppor- 

 tunities of the boldest prophets. 



Of these motives, the last one I consider 

 to be much the most important, the neces- 

 sity to provide a footing for at least a few 

 men without official attachments, of supe- 

 rior qualifications, and with an outlook cov- 

 ering the entire field. 



The historian will discover this present 

 segment of time to have been remarkable for 

 its attainments with the products in agri- 

 culture. It is an epoch of wonderful horses, 

 record-breaking cows, magnificent bulls, im- 

 peccable fowls; an epoch of marvellous 

 fruits of the land, and of vast projects of 

 reclamation. But the temper of the time 

 begins to run out to the human factors, to 

 the worth of the people in all the localities, 

 to the little movements here and there that 

 arise like springs in a fertile field. We just 

 begin to glimpse something beyond us, as 

 yet undefined; and presently our thought 

 will begin to run backward to discover who 

 were the men far in the generations behind 

 us who saw something of this field and what 

 they said about it, and what have been the 

 rills of influence that have made the present 

 current. We shall look forward for lead- 

 ers, and shall discover that although we 

 have had major prophets, not yet have we 

 had a national figure. 



********* 



Such questions as these that we have 

 raised, and many more of wide reach, must 

 be discussed somewhere before representa- 

 tive gatherings. Shall it be here or else- 

 where? This company comprises members 

 of the Association and adherents of Section 



