130 
Evening Session, Wednesday, November 2, 1901. 
The section was called to order at 9.30 p. in. by Chairman Jenkins, who 
announced the subject for discussion to be: 
How Much Teaching, if any, is it Desirable that a Station Worker 
Should no? 
H. P. Arm shy, of Pennsylvania. We are all familiar with the history of the 
establishment of the experiment stations and with the very natural way in 
which they were manned from the teaching force of the colleges, the time of the 
instructor being divided between the college and the station. This method of 
procedure was very natural and perhaps unavoidable at that time, and the 
practice has continued up to the present. During the last year for which 
statistics have been published by the Office of Experiment Stations about 
54 per cent of the station workers did more or less teaching. Of course such 
figures are somewhat misleading since they give simply the number of indi- 
viduals without reference to the amount of work done, but they at least show 
that a very considerable proportion of the workers in the stations are also 
teachers. The proportion of course varies a good deal in the different stations. 
In some stations — one or two — all members of the force are stated to have 
more or less teaching work, and the proportion ranges from 100 per cent in 
these cases down to a minimum of about 5$ per cent. The second largest is 
89 per cent, and the second smallest about 15$ per cent. 
Moreover, the tendency seems to be toward an increase in the number of the 
station men who are also doing teaching work. In the year ended June 30, 
1897 — the earliest for which I could readily find figures — the percentage of 
station workers who were also teachers, excluding in this computation the in- 
dependent stations of Connecticut, New York, Georgia, and Ohio, was 49.3, 
and for succeeding years up to 1903 the figures run in round numbers 49, 50, 
50, 52, 52, 56, and 54, showing quite a plain tendency toward an increase in the 
proportion of station workers who teach. 
Most of you will probably recall the address of Director Jordan at the New 
Haven convention, in which he called attention to the fact that in that year a 
very large proportion of the heads of departments in stations were also teachers, 
so that the teaching work was laid upon the higher officers of the stations rather 
than upon the lower grade assistants. I think that would probably be equally 
true — perhaps more true — now. The fact of the matter is that the recent growth 
of instruction in agriculture — the differentiation of agricultural instruction — 
has had a tendency to increase the demands upon the station specialist for 
teaching. 
I think we all agree that it is an important question of station administration 
as to how far this tendency is wise and desirable. Some, for whose opinion 
upon such matters I have the very highest respect, urge very strongly that it is 
desirable, in most cases, at least, that the experiment station worker shall also 
be a teacher, and the teacher shall also be an investigator. They claim that 
the two kinds of work are mutually helpful to each other. I am not clear that 
I agree with that opinion, however. But this is too important a question for our 
opinions or convictions to be settled subjectively by our own v>ersonal impressions, 
and the thought that was really in my mind in suggesting this topic for discus- 
sion was whether we could not profitably get together and compare our views 
upon it. Of course the figures which I have presented are merely suggestive; 
they probably do not represent quantitatively the situation, because, doubtless, 
