240 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



vastly and at once benefited by the new institution. Nothing else was 

 to take precedure under any consideration. This first, other things 

 secondary. The disappointment was attributable to causes such as the 

 following: * 



1. Too much was expected. Too great things were to be accomplish- 

 ed. The public mind has been aroused to a condition of great expectancy 

 without having concerned itself with the means of accomplishment or 

 even without any well-founded reasons upon which the affects should fol- 

 low. The inevitable result was disappointment and a disposition to 

 blame somebody for it. 



2. The ends siought were va guely 'perceived. Everybody thought 

 he knew what was needed to be dene and perhaps how to do it, but the 

 thinking was superficial; it v/as theoretical in the main and took color 

 from the circumstances and characteristics of the individual. There 

 was therefore clash of opinion with no standard of comparison or valua- 

 tion. 



3. Science had not been adjusted to the elucidation of the complex 

 problems involved. The complexity and diflaculty of these problems 

 were rarely recognized. It had been proclaimed and believed that a 

 chemical analysis of soil would infallibly indicate what crops would suc- 

 ceed thereon, or what definite substance or substances must be added to 

 make certain crops a certain success. Almost no attention has been 

 given the biological factors. As is the case with all those partially in- 

 formed the men of science were O/Ver-confidient. Their emphatic state- 

 ments did not find support in practice, and science itself was discredited. 

 The idea that a professor could teach agriculture was often held to be 

 ridiculous, and there was some basis for this holding. In a word science 

 and practice were tod far apart and each esteemed the other too little. 



4. There was woeful want of understanding in regard to what one 

 man could and could not do. For a score of years^ only one department 

 was thought of either by trustees or by professors. Each institution had 

 filled its complement of officers with one professor of agriculture. He 

 and his superiors thought it was his duty to develop and teach the whole 



