March 3, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



345 



work which is now being undertaken in 

 animal breeding at the experiment stations 

 of this country, and made some suggestions 

 for Avork in that line. 



In the conference upon the subject of 

 ' How Much Teaching, if Any, is it Desirable 

 that a Station Worker Should BoV there 

 was a lively discussion and a free expression 

 of opinion, which seemed to be very largely 

 in one direction. In opening the discussion 

 Dr. H. P. Armsby, of Pennsylvania, showed 

 that according to the latest statistics about 

 54 per cent, of the experiment station work- 

 ers now do more or less teaching in the 

 agricultural colleges, and that the tendency 

 seemed to be toward an increase. lie ex- 

 pressed doubt as to the advantage to the 

 station man of doing college work, and he 

 held that, at all events it should be small 

 and of advanced character. He believed 

 that in this agricultural work a man should 

 be chiefly either a teacher or an investiga- 

 tor, and maintained that, to a certain ex- 

 tent, the two kinds of work call for a dif- 

 ferent attitude of mind and the use of a 

 ditferent set of faculties. 



Dr. W. H. Jordan held that the ad- 

 vantage of teaching, from the standpoint of 

 the station man, depended quite largely 

 upon the kind of teaching to be done, which 

 in the case of the agricultural colleges is 

 very largely the teaching of fundamentals. 

 Such teaching he held to be of no advantage 

 to the investigator, although he conceded 

 that a small amount of teaching of an ad- 

 vanced character, along specialties with 

 whif'h the investigator is dealing, might 

 prove advantageous. 



It developed from the discussion that the 

 l)lan of requiring this dual service from 

 station men was regarded as largely one of 

 expediency, and that the requirement of 

 too much teaching from men holding impor- 

 tant positions on the station stai¥ had an 

 unfavorable effect upon the general char- 

 acter of the station work. It was urged 



that the teaching should be so arranged on 

 the college schedule as to interfere as little 

 as possible with the time of the station 

 worker, and that the tendency should be in 

 the direction of restricting the amount of 

 teaching and limiting it to advanced woi*k. 

 The discussion served to enunciate anew 

 the true function of the experiment station 

 as an institution primarily for the higher 

 grades of experimentation and research, 

 and emphasized more strongly than ever 

 before the great need of a sharper differen- 

 tiation of its work and its corps of workers 

 from the instruction department of the 

 collocp. 



The extent to which specialization and 

 equipment for agricultural instruction and 

 investigation are being carried was exempli- 

 fied at the Iowa State College at Ames, 

 where the convention spent an interesting 

 and profitable half -day as the guests of the 

 institution. Here the large amount of live 

 stock kept primarily for instruction pur- 

 poses (over thirty head of horses of various 

 breeds and types), the new pavilion for 

 stock and grain judging, the well-equipped 

 new department of farm mechanics, the 

 commodious soils laboratory, the new dairy 

 building in process of construction, and the 

 plans for the new agricultural building to 

 cost from $250,000 to $300,000, as well as 

 the other departments of longer standing, 

 were typical of the rapid advancement 

 which is making in the material equipment 

 for agricultural education, which will place 

 that department on a par with engineering 

 at the better institutions. 



The officers of the association elected for 

 the ensuing year were as follows : 



President — E. B. Voorhees, of New Jersey. 



Vice-Presidents — J. C. Hardj% of Mississippi; 

 K. L. Butterfield, of Rhode Island; C. D. Woods, 

 of ]\Iaine; E. R. Nichols, of Kansas, and E. Daven- 

 port, of Illinois. 



Secretary and Treasurer — .1. L. Hills, of Ver- 

 mont. 



