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SCIUNCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. I 



the future, and this fact in no way mini- 

 mizes the value of the college in agricul- 

 tural affairs. We ignore the teachings of 

 all human experience if we look for the 

 time when the destinies of the nation and 

 the interests of agriculture or of any voca- 

 tion will not be safeguarded by a small 

 minority of citizens whose training has 

 placed them outside the domination of 

 dangerous sentiment and ignorant preju- 

 dice and who possess that power of dis- 

 crimination derived from a knowledge of 

 fundamental principles, without which we 

 may not expect an intelligent and judicial 

 consideration of either vocational or public 

 questions. 



Not only are we greatly dependent upon 

 wise leadership in both social and indus- 

 trial affairs, but with the college lies the 

 opportunity for its development. It is 

 among the young men and women who seek 

 the advantages of college instruction that 

 we find those who, because of ambition and 

 capacity, constitute material with the larg- 

 est possibilities of future usefulness. If 

 the college fails in wisely molding these 

 plastic minds it fails to fully occupy its 

 one great opportunity, and if, on the other 

 hand, the training given is inadequate or 

 unbalanced or in any way less effective 

 than is reasonably possible, both the re- 

 ceptive student and the public are de- 

 frauded and suffer a loss that can scarcely 

 be made good. 



Not all college graduates will be leaders, 

 and not all leaders will possess a college de- 

 gree; but it is a fact worthy of emphasis 

 that the opportunity of the college is with 

 the few and not with the many. Only a 

 very small proportion (perhaps one or two 

 in a hundred) of any generation of men 

 and women will come into extended con- 

 tact with college life, and these few will be 

 the medium through which the college will 

 render its largest and most effective serv- 



ice. The college can never come into effi- 

 cient touch with the many as it does with 

 the few. Whatever direct influence it se- 

 cures over the general public lacks concen- 

 tration and continuity; in fact, is diffuse 

 and indefinite. Experience and observa- 

 tion show that a discouraging proportion 

 of the minds reached by the attempts at 

 popular instruction are either irresponsive 

 or incapable and the constructive value of 

 these efforts is not to be compared with the 

 life-long example and infiuence of those 

 who are adequately trained for social and 

 industrial leadership. 



There are those, doubtless, who believe 

 that these institutions, supported by public 

 funds, should stand in especially close rela- 

 tion to the people and that in order to do 

 the work for which they were organized 

 they should establish a low grade of admis- 

 sion, occupy a secondary place in our edu- 

 cational scheme, adhere closely to instruc- 

 tion of an ultra-vocational character and 

 engage extensively in agricultural propa- 

 ganda, leaving to the older colleges and 

 universities the severer training that is re- 

 quired in preparing men and women for 

 the higher ranges of thought and activity. 

 It is to be hoped that if we have in any 

 measure adopted this policy we shall move 

 away from it as rapidly as circumstances 

 will permit. Such a policy is a practical 

 assumption that there is no place in the 

 agricultural field for the highest type of 

 intellectual development and equipment,, 

 an assumption to which no well-informed 

 student of social and economic conditions 

 is likely to consent. If we also take intO' 

 consideration the fact that the dignity and 

 importance of agricultural opportunities 

 receive little emphasis in those institutions 

 where the main trend of thought and train- 

 ing is in other directions, we see sufficient 

 reasons why the agricultural college should 

 not relegate to other agencies its clearly 



