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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 975 



to believe that one or both of them are for- 

 gotten in some instances and that the forget- 

 ting of them leads to little short of disaster. 



The writer is interested in the problem of 

 agricultural extension, not in an executive, 

 but in a departmental way. It is this interest 

 which every department, and every member of 

 every department, must take in the ultimate 

 success of the projects which the department 

 represents, that may serve as an excuse, if any 

 be needed, for the present article. 



The writer knows, or thinks he knows, from 

 observation, that the practical administration 

 of the agricultural extension idea may be, on 

 the one hand, exceedingly helpful, or, on the 

 other, quite disastrous to any department. In 

 order that harmony of administration shall 

 prevail, " the department of agronomy should 

 embrace all the agronomists employed by the 

 college, whether they are engaged in experi- 

 menting, teaching or extension work." The 

 quotation may of course be extended to in- 

 clude all departments of any agricultural col- 

 lege. Every department of every agricultural 

 college should have a head or chief, and he 

 should be responsible for all the work and all 

 the time of all people in the college-experi- 

 ment-station-extension department who are 

 engaged in the line of work which he repre- 

 sents. 



Such a statement may sound dictatorial. 

 It is not. It is only good administration. 



So great a movement upon the part of the 

 collective agricultural colleges as the one 

 necessitated by the present demand for public- 

 service or " extension " is bound to carry them 

 back, or perhaps forward, to fundamentals. 

 What is the logic of college " departments " ? 

 Answer, college departments logically grow 

 out of natural lines of cleavage between the 

 several ' portions of work before the college 

 organization. Such lines of cleavage do not 

 naturally intersect, and if they are permitted 

 or forced to do so, the result is confusion. 

 The lines of distinction between the natural 

 departments of agricultural work are clear 

 enough. Animal husbandry, agronomy, hor- 

 ticulture and so on can hardly trespass upon 

 the work of one another, because each division 



of work grows out of fundamental difierences. 

 If the natural divisions of labor, as a result of 

 which departments are created, are kept very 

 clearly in mind by organizations, in " extend- 

 ing " their work, the problem appears not very 

 complex. 



Such a statement naturally leads to the 

 inference that the several departments of the 

 college are sovereign within themselves, except 

 for the general executive authority which 

 emanates from the office of the dean or presi- 

 dent, and as a corollary it would be expected 

 that all representatives of a given line of work 

 should at all times report directly to the chief 

 of the department and not, for instance, di- 

 rectly to the director of extension. That is 

 also exactly so. " No man can serve two 

 masters : for either he will hate the one, and 

 love the other, or else he will hold to the one 

 and despise the other." 



In what relation, then, is agricultural exten- 

 sion in the several agricultural colleges to be 

 administered? In attempting to answer the 

 question, the writer makes bold, very bold, 

 perhaps, to insert the following plan of an 

 ideal administrative arrangement of the de- 

 partments of an agricultural-college-experi- 

 ment-station organization. 



It may be apparent from this ideal arrange- 

 ment that the office of the dean and director 

 is the central administrative authority of the 

 entire college. In case of the smaller colleges 

 where the dean assumes the title of president, 

 there is no essential diiierence. The dean and 

 director not only administers the institution, 

 but he reflects the spirit of the institution. 

 He represents the state in which his college is 

 located in the specialty which his college rep- 

 resents. He is big enough and broad enough 

 and sympathetic enough and democratic 

 enough to provide ways through which all the 

 departments of his organization may inde- 

 pendently each attain its highest efficiency. 

 The efficiency of the executive office is not 

 only measured by the efficiency of the several 

 departments which report to it, but also by the 

 ability of the dean and director to transform 

 such efficiency and make it available to the 

 state. 



