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their own programs. Administrative, or regulatory, functions will sooner or later bring extension work in the landgrant colleges into disrepute.

Even though the Cooperative Extension Service and the extension services of the land-grant colleges confine themselves to the educational objective and leave regulatory functions in the hands of the United States Department of Agriculture, there still remains a problem of determining the proper modes and limits of collaboration in agricultural programs between these two agencies. These relationships have not been well defined and as a result some confusion exists.

Recently Iowa State College has attempted to determine the role of the land-grant college in governmental agricultural programs. The following selection from the report of a committee working on this problem is pertinent:

The general division of labor as between the federal and state governments and the land-grant college in the field of administration is clear. The college not only wants no executive responsibility for the fulfillment of a program, but it must insist that none be imposed on it. On the other hand it not only believes that it should be entrusted with agricultural education and research pertinent to these programs of direct action; it feels that the federal and state governments should either give it complete control over any such work that must be done in connection with the carrying out of any program or at least should guarantee not to operate in either of these spheres except with its complete cooperation. To proceed otherwise would be to duplicate research and information organizations wastefully and unnecessarily. At this point, however, it must be recognized that the success of a program of direct action by the government for the betterment of agriculture depends only partially on the presentation of factual material; supplementing this there must also be a kindling of favor and enthusiasm. The former function the land-grant college should discharge but the latter requires so much of inspiration and fervor that it should be left to the sponsors of the program concerned. Here is the place of greatest danger to the land-grant college at the state level for there is not always a clear line of distinction between informational and inspirational material. The land-grant college must rely for the protection of its integrity on a wisely-determined policy administered with judgment.80

"The Role of the Land-Grant College in Governmental Agricultural Programs," The Iowa State College Bulletin, XXXVIII (1938), p. 12.

In consideration of this question it should be borne in mind that the trend for many years within the States has been to transfer policing or regulatory functions from the land-grant institutions to the State boards or departments of agriculture. This reallocation of functions has been largely accomplished with distinct gains to the colleges as centers of instruction, research, and extension. Assumption by the land-grant colleges of regulatory functions for the Federal Government would be a reversal of the policy that has been developed over a period of years with reference to the discharge of similar functions in the several States, and, in the judgment of the writers, would be a serious mistake.

A comparison of time distribution of extension agents and field work of specialists for 1936 shows a few major lines of activity: Farm crops and soils, 19 percent; animal husbandry, including dairy and poultry, 14 percent; and agricultural economics, 14 percent. Program planning and organization activities accounted for 11 percent of the agents' time. A total of 60 percent of their time was devoted to agricultural phases of the program, 19 percent to home economics, and 21 percent to community and miscellaneous activities. (See Table 15.)

If these percentages for 1936 are compared with percentages for previous years, it will be found that they are consistently similar, except for a few phases of the work.

Time spent on crop activities increased greatly in 1934 and 1935, because of crop control programs and drought conditions, and time spent on community and miscellaneous activities decreased. Work in agricultural economics increased in 1936, whereas time spent on crop activities decreased markedly. A relatively small percentage and a decreasing percentage of time is spent on community activities as such. Time spent on club work is here distributed among the various projects with which club work is concerned. Nevertheless it is obvious that the main emphasis of the extension work is still on the technical and productive aspects of agriculture and to a lesser degree on home economics. Because the social and cultural needs of rural

people are as acute as their vocational needs, it would seem that these aspects could justly occupy a large proportion of the extension workers' attention.81

TABLE 15.-Percentage of agents' and specialists' time devoted to various projects in cooperative extension work, by year, 1928 to 1936 1

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1 Data for 1928 to 1935 from U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics, 1937 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937), p. 472. Data for 1936 obtained from M. C. Wilson, Statistical Results of Cooperative Extension Work: 1936, Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Extension Service Circular 266 (multilithed, June 1937), Table 2, page 3. Notice that "agricultural engineering" is used in this reference in place of the term "rural engineering" used in the first reference given. Only field work of specialists as reported by county extension agents is included.

Since 1929 the percentage of time devoted to soils has been included in Farm crops. Prior to 1930 the information on child development and parent education, formulation of the extension program, and organization was included in miscellaneous.

Programs for Young People

No phase of cooperative extension work has had a more spectacular growth than the junior extension program for boys and girls from 10 to 20 years of age. This activity is commonly referred to as 4-H club work. The work had its origin at about the beginning of the present century. At the time of the passage of the Smith-Lever Act the enrollment in 4-H clubs had reached approximately 130,000.82 Since

1 Landis and Willard, op. cit., pp. 74-5.

83

that time the increase in enrollees has been at the rate of about 40,000 a year. Since the beginning of the work approximately 6,000,000 boys and girls have been identified with it.84

In 1936 approximately 29 percent of the time of 7,597 extension workers was spent on club work. (See Table 16.) The apportionment of the same percentage of the total cost of the extension program (about $28,300,000 in 1936) to club work would give an estimated expenditure of about $8,000,000 for this activity.

TABLE 16.—Percentage of time devoted to junior extension work by 7,597 extension workers, by State, fiscal year ended June 30, 1936 1

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1 Information supplied by Extension Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Data cover 4-H club work and older youth. The 7,597 extension workers include 522 State leaders and assistant leaders, 1,122 specialists, 3,730 county agricultural agents and assistants, 1,851 county home demonstration agents and assistants, and 372 club agents.

82 True, A History of Agricultural Extension Work, pp. 66-8.

83 Clarence B. Smith, Trends in Club Work and What Lies Ahead, U. S. Department of Agriculture Extension Circular No. 245 (mimeographed, June 1936), p. 2.

$4 See Lucinda Crile, The Relationship of Age and Other Factors to Enrollment and Continuation in 4-H Club Work, United States Department of Agriculture Extension Circular No. 231 (mimeographed, 1935), p. 1.

In 1936, 479,232 boys and 666,276 girls were enrolled in 4-H clubs.85 Although 4-H club work has the farm group as its particular field, it reaches many of the nonfarm rural girls. Many boys and girls in the 10-to-20-year age group not now enrolled have been enrolled in previous years or will enroll in the future. According to calculations made by representatives of the Department of Agriculture, if the present proportions continue, at some time between the ages of 10 and 18 years, 67 percent of the farm girls, 50 percent of the farm boys, 30 percent of the rural nonfarm girls, and 15 percent of the rural nonfarm boys, or 44 percent of all rural boys and girls, will have had 4-H club experience. In 1930 there were 6,469,222 rural boys 10 to 20 years of age inclusive and 6,089,593 rural girls. Of these, 4,063,511 were rural farm boys and 3,663,370 were rural farm girls.86

In general the 4-H club work reaches the younger persons in the 10-to-20-year age group. In 1936, 12 percent of the 4-H club members were 10 years of age or less; 28 were between the ages of 10 and 13 years; 40 percent, from 13 to 16 years; 19 percent, from 16 to 20 years; and 1 percent, 20 years of age and older.87 In 1935 the average age of 4-H club members was about 14 years. The average age at which 1935 4-H members began their period of membership was about 12 years. 88 The average periods of membership of 1936 club members were slightly over 2 years.8

89

The 4-H club membership is drawn chiefly from the inschool group of young people. In Iowa, for example, in the year 1931, nearly 87 percent of the 27,034 club members were in school.90

85 Wilson, op. cit., p. 5.

Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, vol. II, pp. 599-600.

87 Wilson, op. cit., p. 6.

8 Barnard D. Joy, Statistical Analysis of Trends in 4-H Club Work with Special Reference to 1935, U. S. Department of Agriculture Extension Circular No. 247 (mimeographed, 1936), p. 16.

89 Wilson, op. cit., p. 6.

J. Brownlee Davidson, Herbert M. Hamlin, and Paul C. Taff, A Study of the Extension Service in Agriculture and Home Economics in Iowa (Ames, Iowa: The Collegiate Press, 1933), p. 218.

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