of C. E. Seashore, dean of the Graduate College of the University of Iowa and chairman of the committee on the gifted student in the National Research Council. It was found that sectioning of students according to ability had been tried in a number of land-grant colleges, most frequently in English and mathematics, but sometimes in physics, chemistry, agriculture, home economics, and other studies.

Sectioning was confined almost entirely to the freshman year for several obvious reasons: (1) The sectioning of freshmen is usually necessary on account of the size of the class and can be made as easily on the basis of native and acquired ability, provided satisfactory tests are available, as on any other basis; (2) most of the students in the lower levels of intelligence are eliminated in the freshman year, thus lessening the need in later years for special methods for different intelligence groups; (3) the division of second, third and fourth year students into special subject-matter groups and the elections in the upper classes decrease the need for sectioning according to ability and further stimulate effort by motivating the work (499).

One or more of the standard intelligence tests have been used in about half of the land-grant colleges.

In some cases the intelligence tests have been put to no immediate practical use but are being studied by departments of psychology for such bearings as they may have upon entrance credits and examinations and upon the relations between intelligence quotients and the standings determined by class records and final examinations. In no case on record with the committee have intelligence tests been used alone to determine the fitness of candidates for entrance to college, with the exception of a few veterans' bureau candidates. Nor have these tests been used alone in sectioning students on the basis of ability except in Connecticut in an experimental way. In most cases the intelligence tests (e. g., the Army Alpha tests) have been supplemented by other types of tests, such as standardized information tests, aptitude tests, placement tests, comprehension tests, and ordinary subject-matter tests of the kind that have long been used to measure the progress of students (499).

Special or standing faculty committees on methods of instruction are increasing in number in the land-grant colleges and are aiding in stimulating scholarship among the students.

Numerous other methods of stimulating scholarship are employed. The excess credit or "point" system whereby the A and B students are given credit toward graduation in excess of semester hours' credit is in use in 16 of the colleges. Thirty-eight of the colleges award class or commencement honors. Honor societies are found at all but three of the colleges. Student advisory systems are still on trial and occasionally amount to something more than a perfunctory signing of study cards. One type of advisory relationship is proving helpful, that is the meeting of deans or heads of departments or personnel officers with individuals or groups of students of high intellectual capacity to stimulate their working up to capacity (499).

PROGRESS IN TEACHING RURAL ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

The efforts of the agricultural colleges to organize and improve courses in rural economics and sociology have in recent years been increasingly aided by the researches in these lines carried on by the United States Department of Agriculture through its divisions now combined in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and by the State experiment stations.

The work of the American Farm Economic Association, published in its Journal of Farm Economics, and of the American Country Life Association, contained in its proceedings, has also made a considerable contribution to the subject matter in these fields.

The rapid growth of the literature on rural economics and sociology in recent years is indicated by comparison of the reports of the bibliographer of the Land-Grant College Association in 1913 and 1921. In the former year 128 books and other separate publications issued during the previous seven years were listed. In 1921 the list included 362 titles, grouped as follows: Agricultural history and development, 21; agricultural land, 12; cooperation, 17; cost of production, 26; farm labor and wages, 17; farm management, 36; marketing, 56; rural church, 11; rural credit, 35; rural economics, general, 29; rural population, 11; rural school, 8; rural sociology, general, 40; rural surveys, 16; and tenancy, 13.

At the meeting of the Land-Grant College Association in 1923, B. H. Hibbard, of the College of Agriculture of the University of Wisconsin, in a paper on the rôle of economics in the training of agricultural students, pointed out that three plans for organizing work in agricultural economics had been tried in the land-grant institutions. It had been taught (1) in a separate department in the college of agriculture, (2) in a division of the department of economics in the college of letters and sciences, and (3) in several departments dealing with production in an agricultural college. The first method, according to Professor Hibbard, is the only one which thus far has given any degree of satisfaction. The course in economics for agricultural students should include not less than seven semester units, four of which should be given to the general principles of economics and three to the application of these principles to agriculture. This course should come not later than junior year and might advantageously be preceded in sophomore year by studies in economic history, agricultural geography, and bookkeeping. Specialization in agricultural economics for those students majoring in this subject should be arranged for in junior and senior years.

This subject was also discussed by Henry C. Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. He advocated the teaching of economic geography, agricultural history, elementary statistics and graphic methods, and farm inventories and accounts in freshman and sophomore years and the outlines of agricultural economics in junior year. These required courses should be followed by the choice of three special courses from the following list: Agricultural statistics, farm management and practice, marketing of farm products, cooperative marketing at home and abroad, agricultural finance, land problems, country-life problems.

It should be borne in mind that what the student gets out of the study of economics is not a formula that will serve as a guide to his actions in the future, but rather a method of gathering facts and analyzing problems, which method may be applied to the solution of such problems as will arise from time to time as he enters on the duties of everyday life (499).

In its division of rural social science, the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1923-24 offered a required course in the elements of rural sociology and elective courses on the social condition of rural people, rural government, rural organization, field work in rural sociology, and rural social surveys. This was in addition to one required course in agricultural industry and resources and 14 electrive courses in various branches of rural economics.

At the New York College of Agriculture at Cornell University in 1924-25 courses were listed in about 20 different subjects under the heads of farm management, marketing, rural economy, and history of agriculture in the department of agricultural economics and farm management, and in the department of rural social organization courses are offered on the social problems of rural communities, the rural family, organization of agriculture in the United States, rural leadership, the rural community, the social psychology of rural life, the village, field work in rural society, and research in rural social organization.

In an article on the development of the work in agricultural economics and allied subjects published in Bureau of Education Bulletin 37, 1924, Doctor Taylor sums up progress in recent years as follows:

In the academic year 1909-10, 82 courses, averaging 3.3 credits, were offered in 40 of our agricultural colleges, while in the academic year 1919-20, 308 courses, averaging 3.4 credits, were offered, or an increase of 275 per cent in the number of courses offered. Instruction in farm management increased rapidly, as indicated by the fact that the number of courses offered increased from 42, averaging 3.6 credits, in 1910 to 85 courses, averaging 3.9 credits, in 1920. This shows an increase of 102 per cent in the courses offered in this subject. The courses offered in agricultural economics increased from 22, averaging 3.1 credits, to 56, averaging 2.9 credits, or an increase of 155 per cent for the period 1910 to 1920. Courses in marketing were not introduced until 1911, in which year two courses were offered. The growth in this subject has been rapid, and to-day land-grant colleges are offering 42 courses. All other courses besides farm management, agricultural economics, and marketing have increased from 18 to 125 per cent (469).

In 1910, 22 colleges employed 28 part-time instructors and 6 colleges had 11 full-time instructors in agricultural economics; in 1915, 31 colleges reported 49 part-time instructors and 14 had 46 full-time instructors; in 1921, 30 colleges reported 79 instructors and 26 colleges had 104 full-time instructors. In 1921, 70 of these instructors in 29 colleges had bachelor of science degrees; 60 instructors in 27 colleges had master of science degrees; and 41 instructors in 21 colleges had the doctor of philosophy degrees. At that time 33 landgrant colleges reported 6,908 regular, 3,109 special, 294 short-course, and 268 post-graduate students, making a total of 10,579 students engaged in work in agricultural economics, farm management, and allied subjects.

In the same publication C. J. Galpin states that from 1911 to 1922 rural sociology was admitted into 40 land-grant colleges and full-time professors of this subject were employed in 15 colleges (469).

Courses in rural sociology have thus far been mainly of undergraduate grade and have usually been for juniors and seniors. A few colleges are offering graduate courses. A considerable number of master's degrees and a few doctorates have been granted to students majoring in rural sociology.

RECENT RESEARCH WORK OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES

The agricultural colleges have continued to do research mainly through the experiment stations. Because of conditions growing out of the World War the growth of the stations during the past decade has been relatively slow.

In 1925 these stations had an annual income of about $10,500,000, including $1,440,000 from the Federal Government under the Hatch

and Adams Acts. They employed about 2,400 trained workers, about half of whom did more or less teaching in the colleges. They issue annually about 1,000 publications freely distributed to nearly a million addresses. The contents of these publications are generally summarized in the agricultural press and form the basis of much of the extension work of the colleges. Many of them find their way abroad. Summaries of all of them are regularly published in the Experiment Station Record and sent to libraries and agricultural institutions throughout the world.

In 1924-25 the total number of projects carried on by the experiment stations was 5,538. These dealt with a great variety of problems relating to soils, field crops, horticulture, animal husbandry, plant and animal diseases, beneficial and injurious insects, noxious animals, dairying, rural engineering, farm buildings, water supply, sanitation, foods and human nutrition, etc. There were also 235 projects in the field of rural economics and sociology.

The Purnell Act of February 24, 1925, authorizes an increase of Federal funds to the experiment stations to the extent of $20,000 to each State for the fiscal year 1926 and an additional sum of $10,000 each year for four years, after which the annual sum will be $60,000 as long as this law is in force. (Fig. 23.) Appropriations under this act must be made annually by Congress:

The funds appropriated pursuant to this act shall be applied only to paying the necessary expenses of conducting investigations or making experiments bearing directly on the production, manufacture, preparation, use, distribution, and marketing of agricultural products, and including such scientific researches as have for their purpose the establishment and maintenance of a permanent and efficient agricultural industry, and such economic and sociological investigations as have for their purpose the development and improvement of the rural home and rural life, and for printing and disseminating the results of said researches.

It is expected that this act will greatly broaden and strengthen the research work of the agricultural experiment stations in the fields of rural economics and sociology and home economics, and that this will react very favorably on the resident teaching and extension work of these institutions in such lines. The history of the Purnell Act is given in the Proceedings of the Land-Grant College Association for

1925.

SHORT COURSES

The wide spread of the extension work and the great increase of secondary schools in which agriculture was taught, brought into prominence problems relating to the short-course work of the agricultural colleges, which had become very varied and complex. In 1924 the committee on college organization and policy of the LandGrant College Association, with the approval of its executive body, asked the committee on instruction in agriculture, home economics, and mechanic arts" to study the aims, character, duration and present status, proposed development and changes of the short courses offered at the land-grant institutions" (499). It was found that 45 of these institutions were offering short courses in agriculture, as compared with 22 in home economics and 24 in mechanic arts. These courses varied in length from one day to three years. They covered a wide range, including such subjects as general agriculture, farm manage

ment, agronomy, horticulture, forestry, animal husbandry, dairying, veterinary medicine, and economic entomology; and those of median scope, such as soils, market gardening, cotton, deciduous fruits, citrus and subtropical fruits, floriculture, beef cattle, poultry, beekeeping, farm structures; or specialties, such as grain grading or judging, nut culture, ice-cream making, cotton marketing and classing, elevator

management, and land classification and appraisals. There were also courses for canners, herdsmen, gardeners, nurserymen, editors, and teachers.

A considerable amount of the short-course work listed under mechanic arts was in the field of agricultural engineering and the special units, such as tractor repair and operation, gas engines, blacksmithing, etc.