60 
Bailey's phrase, that 'every subject in which men are interested can he put 
into pedagogic form and be a means of training the mind." On the other hand 
the technical educator will concede that a college graduate in whatever course 
should he a cultivated man and that there are certain studies with which all 
cultivated men should have some familiarity. The technical college will, more- 
over, he compelled to employ instructors who can so teach the technical subject 
that it shall not only give the knowledge and training desired, hut shall also 
yield sound culture, become truly liberalizing and vision giving. But a greater 
question remains. As society becomes more fully self-directive the demand for 
social leadership increases. Almost instinctively we look to the college-trained 
man for such leadership. We expect him to understand and to help answer the 
questions that society has to meet. It is not enough that he do his particular 
work well ; he has a public duty. Only thus can he pay all his deht to society 
for the training he has had. Yet to-day our technical courses are largely engaged 
in training individuals who. barring some general culture, are highly specialized 
experts. What preparation, for instance, does the future engineer get in college 
for facing such a matter as the labor question? He is likely to he hrought into 
close touch with this question. But as a rule he is not especially qualified to 
handle it. The point of view of the course he has pursued is technique, ever 
technique. He secures in college little incentive and less training for intelligent 
performance of his duty as citizen and as meinher of society. The problems of 
mathematics are not the problems of industry, and profound study of chem- 
istry gives neither the premises nor the data for sound judgment upon social 
questions. These public questions can not be left to social experts. A demo- 
cratic society must insist that all its educated men shall be leaders in solving 
society's problems. But even the educated men can not lead unless they have 
first been taught. I believe society has more to fear from technical experts who 
either neglect their social duty or are ignorant of the social problem than it has 
from highly trained specialists who have never studied Greek nor mastered 
Browning. Moreover, under modern conditions, have we a right to call that 
man cultivated who ignores the great social problems of the age? We face here 
one of the coming educational questions. How can the industrial course be made 
to train men for the social leadership the new regime demands? I see no 
answer except that the course must be made truly and broadly vocational, and 
consequently that large place must be given to social studies, and particularly 
to the concrete problems of government, industry, and social life. 
If we examine our agricultural course from this standpoint, we shall have to 
admit that it has the flaw common to most industrial courses. It is too tech- 
nical. It is not truly vocational. It does not present the social view point. It 
does not stimulate the student to social activity. It does not give him a founda- 
tion for intelligent social service when he shall go to the farm. He should study 
agricultural economics and rural sociology, both because rural society needs 
leaders and because, in the arming of the man. the knowledge of society's prob- 
lems is just as vital as either expert information or personal culture. 
(4) To carry out the function of the agricultural college we need, finally, a 
vast enlargement of extension work among farmers. This work will not only 
be dignified by a standing in the college coordinate with research and the teach- 
ing of students, but it will rank as a distinct department, with a faculty of men 
whose chief business is to teach the people who can not come to the college. 
This department should manage farmers' institutes, carry on cooperative experi- 
ments, give demonstrations in new methods, conduct courses of reading, offer 
series of extension lectures, assist the schools in developing agricultural 
instruction, direct the work of rural young people's clubs, edit and distribute 
such compilations of practical information as now appear under the guise 
of experiment-station bulletins, and eventually relieve the station of the 
bulk of its correspondence. Such a department will be prepared to incorporate 
into its work the economic, governmental, and social problems of agriculture. 
It will give the farmers light upon taxation as well as upon tree pruning. The 
rural school will have as much attention as corn breeding. The subject of the 
market— the "distributive half of farming." as John M. Stahl calls it— will be 
given as much discussion as the subjects bearing upon production. We shall 
find here a most fertile field for work. The farmers are ready for this step. 
They have, as a rule, appreciated the real nature of the farm problem more 
fully than have our agricultural educators. Perhaps at times they have placed 
undue reliance upon legislation. Perhaps in periods of depression they have 
overweighed the economic pressure as against the lack of skilled farming. But 
