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teaching duties. Furthermore the German experience showed conclusively that the most noted agricultural scientists, when permitted the greatest freedom to do basic research, produced the discoveries having the most useful and practical application to farming. Therefore, Armsby contended, American college authorities need not fear that American researchers, if given similar latitude, would ignore the farmers' welfare. If American colleges did not adopt the German policy, Armsby warned, they could not produce the type of meaningful research which alone could retain for them, in future years, the popularity currently attained by station efforts. The attunement of the college with its constituency, he informed the Association, could not exceed the effectiveness of the research conducted at the college station.

Did the college administrators fully grasp the basic meaning of the Hatch Act? The framers of that act, he stressed, had unquestionably recognized the station as "an educational institution" when they decided to incorporate with the college an agency long independent and firmly committed to aid the farmer. Obviously, Armsby continued, the college assumed the station's obligated function when it attached the station. Moreover, the Hatch Act broadened the station's role of service to the farmer because that law assigned the station a responsible share in accomplishing the land-grant objective, namely, "to give... [the farmer] such a practical knowledge of these natural forces as shall enable him to control them for his own advantage." For this wisdom of the Hatch founders Armsby admitted a deep thankfulness. An unattached station ran the risk of doing nothing more than helping the farmer "to raise more corn to feed more hogs to buy more land to raise more corn to feed more hogs." A collegeconnected station, however, if established in "an institution of liberal education" such as the leading presidential spokesmen advocated as the ideal envisioned in the Morrill Act, fortunately could receive the protection it needed to avoid this overly narrow function.

Pointedly, Armsby reminded the Association that the college had a duty, if it would be true to its Morrill-Hatch mission, to prevent a lowering of station standards. "The materialism . . . which measures the success of the station in terms of dollars and cents is totally at variance with the spirit of a true college and should find no place in an institution of liberal education." If the station were to reach an efficient and effective level of performance, he concluded, it needed help which only the college could supply; fortunately the college would, by supplying that help, help itself.

Thus Armsby examined more searchingly than Atherton the concept of reciprocal benefits in the college-station relationship. His master flourish came, however, when with a vision and phraseology as broad as Atherton's he integrated station research with the enlarging educational effort of the college, as follows:

I look confidently to the time when the agricultural college as we now know it will be but the capstone of a great system. . . . But what shall all these people, young and old, be taught, and who shall teach it to them? Where shall we find the fountain from which shall fructify and vivify this vast system, and prevent it from becoming simply a teaching machine and our teachers mere peddlers of knowledge? We shall find it precisely where it is found in all systems of education-in that first hand knowledge and familiarity with the subject which is gained by independent, original investigation—that is, we shall find it in the experiment station. It is our agricultural university devoted to the advancement of learning, the promoter of investigation, the source not merely

of knowledge but of inspiration for the whole organism. . . . My thesis is, then, that the most important function of the American experiment station is that of an institution for higher education in agriculture, the organic head of our whole system, and that it should be supported and managed in the light of this fact."

Thus, the college-station relationship exhibited an admirable capacity for strengthening the land-grant educational process. Yet, as Armsby specifically pointed out, the officers of both the station and the college must make concessions in order to achieve their joint objectives.

"Many station officers," he candidly commented, "are still inclined to regard the separate station as the ideal and the connection with the college as a concession to circumstances." To these men he offered blunt advice, "Discard this notion and . . . recognize the station unreservedly as an integral part of the agricultural college, with its own distinct . . . functions as an educational institution."

Similarly, for college authorities he defined the station responsibility for "higher education." This term meant a maximum of research plus the training of graduate students, who would become the next generation of teachers. The term also meant a minimum of undergraduate instruction, which remained, as always it had been, a college function. Armsby required a further concession. No longer should the president serve as director; furthermore, the director, if he would be "one who inspires," must be a professional scientist.

If the Association would accept these adjustments, the Pennsylvanian would agree that the station and the college "are not doing two distinct kinds of work, teaching and experimenting, but one, education." Likewise Armsby could then say with conviction, "This Association does not stand for two parallel but distinct sets of interests. . . . Nothing that concerns any aspect of the great problem of industrial education is foreign to its aims, and no single phase of this problem can claim any exclusive rights in its deliberations." Armsby then concluded with an evaluation used in 1889 by the men who had opposed his amendment for twin sections: "There may be diversities of judgment as regards means and methods-there can be no conflict of purpose."

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Armsby in this way squarely faced the divisive issue which had troubled "station men" and "college men" for a quarter century. His concessions revealed his broad-minded diplomacy, which accepted the longstanding presidential philosophy. His demands, in turn, complemented his statesmanship, which insisted on a policy granting a practical freedom of action for research. His compromise paid tribute to the strength of the land-grant educational ideal, which now had a policy of station-college cooperation.

The unity which Armsby foresaw, however, had not yet arrived in the Association. In the midnineties presidential insistence mounted in favor of a constitutional revision which would eliminate the technical specialists from the conventions, and would reestablish the system of general sessions, open only to presidents and directors for the discussion of administrative questions. Armsby successfully led the opposition in 1897 and again 1899. This contest persisted stubbornly until 1903, when a compromise resulted.

The constitutional revision of 1903 abolished the system of sections prevailing since 1889. It divided the Association into twin sections, one on college work admitting only the president, and the other on

station work, nominally for the directors but admitting all other station officers as well (16, pp. 13-15). This arrangement, for the first time in the life of the Association, permitted "a single gathering of station workers" to deal with all phases of station activity_(16, pp. 193, 194). The revision also reconstituted the Executive Committee. Henceforth the college section elected three members, and the station section two members, to that committee.

Unity within the Association, the goal of college and station men for a quarter century, for the first time became possible by 1903. Each of the twin sections had gained, after long struggle, its major historic interest, and each now had the reassurance that the other would not eliminate it from the Association. Fortunately for the station cause, the emerging unity came not a moment too soon, for in the several years to follow the station movement would undergo its sternest test.

LITERATURE CITED

(1) ALVORD, H. E.

1896. ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1895) 9: 26. (U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 30.)

(2) ARMSBY, H. P.

1900. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1899): 13: 22–28. (U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 76.)

(3) ATHERTON, G. W. 1889.

(4)

1890.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas.
Proc. 2: 78-79. (U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 1.)

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1889) 3: 73–76. (U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 2.)

(5) ATWATER, W. O., JOHNSON, S. W., AND COOK, G. H.

1888.

(6)

(7)

(8)

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON STATION WORK. Assoc. Amer. Agr.
Cols. and Expt. Stas. (1887), 32 pp. Washington.

CONVENTION OF DELEGATES FROM AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT
STATIONS.

1885. PROCEEDINGS OF A CONVENTION OF DELEGATES FROM AGRICULTURAL
COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS HELD AT THE DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE, JULY 8 AND 9, 1885. [U.S.] Dept. Agr. Misc. Spec.
Rpt. 9, 196 pp.

CONVENTION OF FRIENDS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

1872.

DISCUSSION AT MEETING HELD AT CHICAGO, ON THE 24TH AND 25TH OF AUGUST 1871. Ill. Indus. Univ. Ann. Rpt. (1870/71) 4:215– 351.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE ASSOCIATION.

1941.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION (1887) OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERI-

MENT STATIONS, 6 pp. (Note: No account of this convention was
printed originally. However, a manuscript summary by C. E.
Thorne, Secretary of the convention, which was filed in the
Office of Experiment Stations, was ordered printed by the Exec-
utive Committee of the Association on May 5, 1941.)

HENRY, W. A.
1894.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas.
Proc. (1893) 7: 43–45. (U.S. Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Sta. Bul. 20.)

(9)

(10)

JORDAN, W. H.

1898.

(11)

1881.

REPORT OF THE SECTION ON AGRICULTURE AND CHEMISTRY.

Assoc.

Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1897) 11: 24-25. (U.S.
Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Sta. Bul. 49.)

TOWNSHEND, N. S.

AGRICULTURAL MEETING AT LANSING, MICHIGAN. Ohio State Bd.
Agr. Ann. Rpt. 35: 388-393.

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1889.

(13)

1890.

(14)

1891.

(15)

1892.

(16)

1904.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION (1889) OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT

STATIONS. U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 1, 123 pp.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE ASSOCIA-
TION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT STA-

TIONS. U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 2, 142 pp.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL CONVENTION (1890) OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT

STATIONS. U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 3, 156 pp.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION (1891) OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT
STATIONS.

U.S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Bul. 7, 113 pp.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION (1903) OF
THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EX-

PERIMENT STATIONS. U.S. Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Stas. Bul. 142,
196 pp.

Chapter Six

TOWARD BASIC RE-
SEARCH: THE ADAMS
ACT

The comprehensive phraseology of the Hatch Act of 1887 permitted, as it directed the establishment of tax-supported institutions for research, a broad range of station functions. The preamble marked out the widely spaced limits of authorized activity, from "acquiring and diffusing. practical information" to "scientific investigation and experiment respecting the principles and applications of agricultural science." With equally generous phrasing, Section 5 instructed the governing board of each station to use the Hatch funds for "paying the necessary expenses of conducting investigations and experiments and printing and distributing the results." Thus the law, which allowed each station to shape its own definition of research activity, approved both "pure" science and "applied" science; yet it did not prescribe the features which research activity must possess in order to be classified as "scientific" and, therefore, to qualify for Federal support. Moreover, the lack of precision in the statute let the stations specialize, if they chose, in carrying known information to the farmer rather than in discovering new knowledge.

The broad latitude of the Hatch Act became the keystone of its popularity. It won the support of those people who saw in it a means for stimulating scientific effort toward new discovery. It also gained cooperation from an increasing number of people who regarded it not only as an incentive toward new discovery, but also as an immediate and practical method for wide application of the scientific knowledge assembled by the stations to farming.

QUALITY RESEARCH EMPHASIZED

Nevertheless the Hatch Act, despite its latitude in dealing with the manifold phases of tax-supported research, did in Section 2 assign to the stations "the object and duty... to conduct original researches or verify experiments . . . bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States." This provision, though broadly permissive in its long list of areas eligible for study, clearly indicated that station officers must concentrate on scientific research of the highest quality. Borrowed almost verbatim from the Knapp draft of 1882-83, Section 2 of the Hatch Act accurately expressed the scientist's concept of appropriate station activity. Section 2 did not mention the "acquiring and diffusing . . . of practical information;" the preamble did. It drew its precedent from the measure founding the Department of Agriculture in 1862.

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