of the different methods of seeding, etc. These occasions, too, afford opportunity for the general distribution of agricultural literature.

Another point of communication with the agricultural communities is the farmer' institutes. In some cases the staff of the experiment station is only able to be present at these meetings, and to engage in the discussion of such topics as may happen to arise; in others the meetings are held directly under the auspices of the station, and consist of lectures and addresses upon its work and the needs of the farmers themselves. Much real good has been accomplished by this means, and interest has been aroused upon many important local questions, such as county roads, drainage, the care of orchards, crop rotation, methods of stock breeding and feeding, dairying, and markets and prices.

In those States where a department of veterinary science forms part of the station organization, the plan of holding periodical clinics, at which animals are treated free of charge, and practical instruction is offered in the remedies for the most common diseases of farm stock and the treatment of injuries resulting from the accidents to which stock are liable, has been adopted with considerable success. The advantages of such clinics are mutual, instituting a more enlightened and often a more humane policy on the part of the farmers towards their stock, and serving as valuable object lessons in veterinary science to students of the agricultural colleges.

Not the least important of the effects of the scientific investigations of the experiment stations and the spread of technical agricultural knowledge resulting therefrom has been the rapid increase in the amount of agricultural literature in the United States. Forty years ago there was practically nothing of any great value published in this country bearing upon scientific agriculture. The proceedings of the European agricultural societies and a few works by European authors formed the whole body of literature upon the subject. To-day the number of agricultural works yearly published in the United States is more than equal to the demand. American authors on crop-raising, on drainage and irrigation, on stock-breeding and dairy farming, on horticulture, arboriculture, and viticulture, on botany and entomology, are regarded as authorities everywhere. The number of agricultural periodicals has become simply enormous, and is yearly increasing; while the general interest taken in all subjects relating to agriculture and its kindred sciences is most encouraging.

Although these conditions have to no small extent been brought about directly or indirectly by the experiment-station system as at present existing, the first effect of their work was naturally to direct attention to the stations themselves. Thanks to the more general enlightenment upon and the wider interest taken in agricultural matters, their plans and methods are being subjected to constant and often to severe scrutiny and criticism; this is precisely the most desirable state

of affairs that could exist, not that there is any real reason for complaint as to the character and amount of the work accomplished by them, for on the contrary, in most instances, they are well able to stand the test, but the consciousness that they are regarded as the leaders in the line of agricultural advancement has naturally a stimulating effect upon their work and workers.

It was not to be expected that the experiment stations would at once spring into popular favor. With not a few enemies from the first, ready and eager to detect and point out to the public gaze every slip and possible error made through inexperience or hasty conclusion, it has generally been the case that all important work undertaken has been deliberately conducted and the results cautiously announced. Directors have been keenly alive to the fact that a tardy conclusion is far better than an erroneous or a doubtful one. Repeated verification is absolutely essential to the accuracy of most agricultural experiments. So many quantities have to be taken into the account, so much allowance has to be made for unforeseen extraneous influences and varying climatic conditions, that only after again and again testing the fact to be demonstrated can any definite assertion be made regarding it. This delay, inexplicable to the uninitiated, has always been a point of attack from those who, themselves incompetent to judge, are unwilling that others should suspend judgment.

While there is to a certain extent a sort of general supervision exercised by the General Government, through the Department of Agriculture, over the work of the experiment stations, and while, too, there is some coöperation among the stations in the lines of work adopted, it is nevertheless a fact that they can not reach their highest point of utility until something more of a system has been devised. As we have seen, the immmense area of the country and the great differences in soils and climates and social conditions serve to make the work of each experiment station more or less independent, yet this independence can be carried too far, especially in the case of stations where the conditions are more nearly alike. There seems to be no reason why the same experiments should be performed in a dozen different States upon points which can not vary, no matter where they arise. This is particularly true in the entomological and veterinary departments. Apparently much time and expense could be saved if such work were definitely divided up among the various stations in such a way that, where no local interest is involved, the results of the experiments should become general property and available to farmers everywhere. In this respect the European system is vastly superior to our own.

And yet our own stations are still comparatively in their infancy, and it would be clearly unfair to expect perfect organization and coöperation for years to come. That it will come, however, and that the efficiency and usefulness of the agricultural experiment stations will continue to

increase, is a belief which the record of their first five years of recognized existence would seem to fully warrant.

For complete lists of the bulletins published by the experiment stations, attention is called to the publications of the office of experiment stations of the Agricultural Department at Washington. In the Official Experiment Station Record (monthly), printed by the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture, a full bibliography of the literature emanating from the stations is maintained, with a summary of each month's new bulletins. Copies of this record can be obtained by applying to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Expenditure and working force of experiment stations.

ANNUAL ADDRESS BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

By WM. LEROY BROUN,

President of the association, at the sixth annual convention, held in New Orleans, November 15, 1892.

Gentlemen of the association: In the annual address to be made on this occasion, in accordance with the custom and law of this association of agricultural colleges and experiment stations, I propose to occupy a portion of your time in discussing the educational features of the institutions here represented, and their adaption to the wants of the people.

Education that looks to culture alone, while attractive and elevating in its nature and refining in its influence, does not of itself qualify the recipient for the active duties of life. It simply builds the piers of the bridge to be crossed. There must be superadded to this culture, when obtained by the fortunate possessor, that technical education which will span the chasm that separates college life from actual life.

Milton's definition of education as "that which fits a man to perform skilfully, magnanimously, and justly all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war," is of too general a character to be of value. For whatever might have been thought possible in Milton's day, it is beyond doubt impossible now for any one person to be so equally well educated in all departments as to be able to perform skilfully all the offices of peace and war.

In former years the older college systems were especially adapted, with their excess of classical culture, to the professions of law, medicine, theology, and pedagogy. But long since thoughtful men recognized the defect of a system of education that prepared the youth of the country only for the so-called learned professions. The fact that of the many millions of our people that were engaged in gainful occupations about one-half was employed in agriculture, and less than 3 per cent belong to the class of lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and teachers, showed the necessity of

BROADENING OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

to include this larger class, for which but little special provision had been made. And besides this, the changes wrought in the various occupations of life by the advances made in science and its many applications to the industrial arts demanded that provision should be made for a wide diffusion among the people of a knowledge of these sciences and their applications.

It was in recognition of these facts that the Congress of the United States made the liberal donation of public lands to establish the American agricultural colleges. It is gratifying to consider that wise provision of national legislation, through the instrumentality of which there now exists in every State and Territory a college, endowed by the General Government, for the education and elevation of the people by instruction in the principles and applications of science. Our admiration for the far-seeing wisdom of its authors, who, in that legislation, "builded better than they knew," increases the more the subject is considered.

By the well-known act of Congress of July 2, 1862, by which the land-grant colleges were founded, Senator Morrill, of Vermont,

BUILT FOR HIMSELF A MONUMENT

more lasting than brass. For thereby his name will be held throughout our entire country in affection and esteem by the youth of the centuries to come, who shall fill the halls of these colleges in seeking that education which will fit them to become citizens worthy of the Republic.

It would, therefore, I beg just here to say, be eminently proper that there should be placed in the library of each of the land-grant colleges a bust of our distinguished legislative patron, as an evidence of our high appreciation of the great work he has accomplished in the cause of education.

The historic period in which the act of Congress became a law suggests a somewhat parallel instance in the establishment of a celebrated European university. The historian tells us that hardly had the sound of the Spanish artillery ceased to be heard across the plains of Holland, when Leyden decked herself with flowers in honor of the founding of the great university which has for centuries cast the light of science and learning to the remote parts of the earth. While Leyden was founded as a memorial of peace, our colleges were founded in the hope of peace and the preservation of the Union.

Just thirty years ago, when all the energies of our country were being consumed in that terrible internecine struggle, when war, with its consuming blight, was alone the subject of thought and object of action, then, with

A WISE FORESIGHT

rarely equaled, with a sublime faith in the future of our country, did Congress set apart and devote a vast portion of the public domain to the several States, in trust, for the collegiate education of the generations to come. This act alone will signalize in history the Congress of 1862. A century must elapse before its beneficial effects on the education of the people will be duly appreciated.

As it was only possible once in the history of the world for America to have been discovered, so it was only possible once for the consecration of this large area of

public domain to the cause of education. And as the historian of the future traces the development in civilization of our Republic, and investigates the causes which have contributed thereto, the legislation which established these national colleges of science and the arts will be classed as a prominent factor. This affirmation is based not so much on what has been done in the field of education by these institutions, as on the promise of the future, on the broad view and purpose expressed in the charter as given in the act of foundation, and on the fitness of the charter of education, designated as the leading object of the colleges, to the wants of the people and the demands of the age of science in which we live.

At first many of the States, generally from economic considerations, associated these colleges with their State universities; others founded independent institutions. But in recent years the tendency has been to dissociate and establish

SEPARATE COLLEGES,

from a belief that thereby the object of the educational grant could be better accomplished. But whether they existed as co-ordinate parts of State universities or as independent institutions, one familiar with their history can not fail to have observed that in the early days there existed a widespread prejudice against the character of education proposed to be given. They were in many places regarded as inferior colleges for an inferior class. And possibly, in some instances, the mistake made in the organization and schedule of study may have furnished apparent cause for the existence of such prejudice.

The function of the college was, without doubt, often misunderstood, and the misapprehension in the popular mind was largely due to the name the colleges bear. By many they were thought to be colleges established for the sole purpose of making farmers of their graduates; that they were professional schools established for the purpose of educating boys to be farmers, similar in that respect to the professional schools for educating young men to be lawyers and doctors; and often the colleges experienced severe criticism if their graduates should prefer to adopt some other vocation than that of farming. In the opinion of these critics, a land-grant college failed of its object just in proportion as its graduates failed to adopt farming as a profession, and its success was considered proportionate to the number of farmers among the alumni.

This contracted view of the object of the land-grant colleges has now largely yielded to

A MORE GENEROUS APPRECIATION

of the object of the grant, to a better understanding of the broad and comprehensive plan of the charter as contained in the act of Congress, as well as a more correct appreciation of the relation of technical to liberal education, and to the acknowledgment of the high privileges and rights of an American boy to select his own vocation.

The object of our colleges is, as expressed in the original act, to teach-to teach "such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts; and while it also includes military science, it does not exclude classical studies. This is broad, comprehensive, wise, not narrow or contracted. The leading object is to teach the principles and the applications of science, to teach subjects that relate to the useful arts, and while culture by the study of classics is not excluded, it is not the leading object. It were needless before this association to name the different branches that relate to agriculture, or the many departments of exact seienee that relate to the mechanic arts. All these constitute the direct object of the instruction to be given.

IN THE FIRST YEARS

of the history of these institutions attention was paid generally to agriculture and its branches, to the exclusion of the mechanic arts. This resulted not only