460 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
ment is dependents on the fact that they are duplicated and reduplicated, 
and the original results are thus confirmed or disproved? 
President ScHuRMANN. Certainly it is. If any gentleman in this com- 
mittee doubts that—this is not the question that I came here to argue, 
but you will excuse my digressing for a moment—if you have any 
thought of establishing a Congressional control or an administrative 
contro] of scientific men, I beg of you before doing so to read Dar- 
win’s Life and Letters and then try to imagine how. that man could 
have done his work and revolutionized the eweti of our time as he 
did if he had not been left absolutely free. And what is true of one 
scientist is true of all others. If the Government official knew enough 
to direct the scientist’s work he could get on without him. Absolute 
freedom is the breath of life to science. 
The next sentence is as follows: 
But they heard from the people down here and they now propose to establish a 
college of agriculture. We sent a man down to start them in soil physics. 
Well, considering that we have had a department or college of agri- 
culture ever since the university was started, and the head of it, Pro- 
fessor Roberts, retired last year on reaching the age limit, 70 years, 
and that he aroused more interest in agricultural education and the 
application of science to agriculture than anyone else ever did in New 
York. I naturally feel aggrieved for his sake, now that he is not here 
to speak for himself, to hear it said that we have just now established 
a college of agriculture. We have had a college with an excellent 
faculty. What we have done is to substitute one director for another. 
When Professor Roberts reached the age limit and went out we 
appointed another man in his place, Professor Bailey, as director of 
the college. And, of course, he has made certain changes. For 
instance, we have bought, since Professor Bailey became director of 
me college, three pieces of land, one a farm and the other two half 
arms. 
We have bought 212 acres of land within the last year, on which we 
spent $18,500. Professor Bailey wanted other improvements, so that 
we have spent this year, over and above the money spent on the land, 
$8,000 or $10,000 more, to provide him with these extra facilities, 
than we have been in the habit of spending in the past or than we 
probably will spend in the future. I make this explanation to account, 
perhaps, for this statement that we have just established a college of 
agriculture. Perhaps, also, there is another explanation of it. The 
State of New York has done little for Cornell, nothing like what the 
Western States have done for similar institutions, and recently the 
State has appropriated $35,000 a year for the promotion of agricul- 
tural knowledge throughout the State. That may have suggested the 
statement that we were establishing a college of agriculture. 
But the fact remains that we have had a college of agriculture for 
many years and that it has been attracting large numbers of students, 
and Director Bailey and I hope that if the present rate of increase is 
kept up for the next few years we may have a thousand students in 
agriculture. Ido not think this is a dream, because we have a col- 
lege of mechanic arts, and fifteen years ago we had only 100 or 200 
students there, and this year we have 942 students in that college. 
Science is later in being applied to agriculture than it is in being 
applied to mechanic arts, but the day is coming—it is here—and this 
