CHAPTER II

ACTIVITIES

Advice and Assistance to State Experiment Stations. Through its assistance to fifty of the fifty-nine state experiment stations, most of which are departments of the state agricultural colleges, the Office of Experiment Stations executes one of the original functions of the Department of Agriculture. Through personal visits to the institutions it acquires an intimate relationship with the state colleges, their administration, their progress, and their needs. Through occasional consultations with the officers in charge, it is brought into direct contact with the governing boards as well as with the college departments and station staffs. On the basis of these personal investigations, it makes an annual report to Congress. A principal object of these visits is to help the state experiment stations to carry out the intent of the laws which created and fosters them.

In this work both the state stations and the Office have benefited from the fact that the same persons have conducted the Office for more that a quarter of a century. Due to this advantage, the Office presents an unique example of national administration. It refrains from exhibiting any purpose to direct, to control, or to dominate the state stations. Its legal power and duty to coördinate, to control, and even to coerce remains latent. Occasionally this power is finally resorted to for the correction of gross evils or the misuse of national funds, but usually it is not even referred to. Influence rather than coercion is the policy of the Office, and this is exerted continuously, not only through the annual visits, but also through correspondence, publications, and other channels of advice and council. The Office sets standards, develops ideals, keeps the stations to their courses as institutions for research, and it helps to make professional service with the stations attractive and satisfactory to investigators.

In the annual visits to the stations is exemplified the characteristic spirit of the Office. While in effect these are thorough examinations, they are not even referred to as inspections. Rather

are they regarded as visits for purposes of information to the Office, and as occasions for comparing notes and for conferences on progress.

The fundamental causes for these administrative principles are found not only in the long personal relationships of the inspectors to the stations, but also in the historical background of the Office in the nature of the relations between the national government and the states, and in the nature of scientific research itself. The historical background has already been discussed. As to the relationship with the states, the Office recognizes that the stations are state institutions, that their staffs are not federal employees, that in planning their work they are required to have "due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective states and territories," that the type of the activities is stated in general terms and is subject to reasonable interpretation, and, that the states would resent energetic national coördination and control.

Direction of the Use of National Funds. Through its subsidies to the state agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the national government maintains a measure of supervision over them. Unless the institutions expend the appropriations in the manner specified by law, the government may withhold its aid, which is rendered "to promote scientific investigation and experiment respecting the principles and applications of agricultural sciences." The Adams Act funds must be "applied only to paying the necessary expenses of conducting original researches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry."

To determine whether the state institutions use the appropriations as directed by law, is the duty of the Office of Experiment Station. This is ascertained not only by audits of accounts but also through reports and correspondence and through examination on the grounds of the state stations. Each station is required to submit to the Secretary of Agriculture, an annual statement of its receipts and expenditures as well as a detailed report of its operations. Legally, this supervision might amount to exacting control over the state stations, but mandatory power is seldom resorted to.

A constant source of inquiry is the matter of the actual work done by the research specialists in the experiment stations. At times their energies have been directed to duties other than the research that the law exacts of them. In the pressure of

demands upon the colleges of agriculture they may be called upon by the university authorities to perform collegiate duties at the expense of their experimental work, such as administrative tasks, resident or extension teaching, lectures, and popular writing. This tendency is likely to prevail in the growing universities, where the teaching faculties are not recruited in proportion to the increased student enrollment. It is in such an institution that the assignment of professors might do the most toward defeating the objects intended, because it is to these larger universities that advanced students go to develop their graduate theses. Consequently, they need the constant supervision of the research professors rather than that of the teaching professors. The Office of Experiment Stations, therefore, must insist that the states make sufficient provision for both instruction and research in their universities, and that the researches be properly conducted. It must exercise the closest scrutiny of part-time teaching and research arrangements to see that the apportionment of appropriations for professors' salaries will correspond to the amount of experiment and research work executed by the specialists rather than to the amount of teaching that they may do. The Office discourages part-time arrangements when they are not to the advantage of the stations. It may urge a more definite organization and a closer supervision of the experiment stations. In many institutions, this activity has fostered a careful arrangement of the experiment station budget.

Supervision of Research Projects. National funds may be sometimes granted for the advancement of certain experimental projects in stations or on the experimental farms. This would involve the Office of Experiment Stations in intimate supervision. Before it approves the expenditure of the funds, it makes a critical examination of the projects for research, and it may give suggestions concerning them and even outline them in detail. It must investigate the extent and status of the knowledge pertaining to the subject of the project that is already available to scientists. It sees that the kind of projects that have been approved for these funds are really definite, restricted projects. It must prevent the work on the projects from being superficial, scattering, or entirely dropped due to changes in local administration. This activity is sometimes complicated by the fact that the project is carried out at a distance from the station.

Practically every state experiment station now operates on a project basis. To give the other stations the advantage of these projects, the Office of Experiment Stations compiles a compendium of the titles of projects that are in progress. This is a far reaching task. The compendium for 1921 classified 4770 separate projects, besides those subjects pertaining principally to administrative and regulatory functions.1

Numerous other questions arise with regard to the proper use of national funds for state experiment stations. These demand more attention as the work of the stations progresses and the expenditures of the stations increase.

The fundamental nature of research is another dominant consideration of the Office in its relations with the experiment stations. The Office recognizes the fact that there is a certain incongruity in the minds of scientific men in an inspection or control of research; that the whole spirit of science is freedom of the individual to do his work in his own way, following his own initiative and exercising his own best judgment; and that the best results of research eminate from these stations that have not only procured the best investigators but have also allowed them complete freedom as to methods of research. Dominated by this spirit of scientific inqiury, the Office seeks to stimulate the efforts of the state stations through suggestion, illustration, and comparison, rather than through any form of dictation."

Relations With State Experiment Stations Personnel Administration. Interwoven with the supervision of experiment station finance and research are the advisory activities in the personnel

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See Experiment Station Record, Vol. 44, p. 1 (1921).

As early as 1901, President A. W. Harris, of the University of Maine, himself a former director of the Office of Experiment Stations, said to the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations: Criticisms have given rise to the suggestion that the Department of Agriculture be given larger control of the experiment station. I believe in an efficient central office, but I fear any material increase in the authority of a central agency, lest it end in making the governing board of the experiment station-the mere executive agent of the central governing power-a worse evil than no central government at all. Even a Washington control would involve mistakes, and a strong centralization of authority would multiply every error by an alarming factor. Moreover, it is a great advantage of our present system that each experiment station has the opportunity to work out its own individuality.”

administration of state institutions. Because local personnel and administrative actions might impair the efficiency of the station work for which funds are supplied, the Office of Experiment Stations may withhold national funds until such matters are satisfactorily settled. The sudden removal of a station director or of a particular research professor might cause the cessation of established lines of research and thereby cause a loss of the work that had been done on that particular project up to the time of his removal, and a corresponding waste of the federal funds. Too frequent changes among the various station staffs would likewise impair the efficacy of the appropriations. This is especially true when there is a scarcity of scientific men in the colleges and the various stations complete with their neighbors for professors, causing much shifting of specialists from one station to another, frequent alteration of local plans for research, and general maladjustment and maladministration. To conserve the funds, the Office must discourage constant changes of station personnel. Such changes may be prevented by making opportunity more uniform and thus reduce the advantage of change of location. To secure the proper adjustment in station administration, it may be necessary for the Office not only to withhold the funds but also to resist the local board of control, prescribe the conditions which must be met by the state authorities, enforce specific principles governing the selection of station officers, stipulate the principles upon which the experiment station shall be managed, and closely watch the administration of a station which is temporarily without a director or during the term of an inexperienced director.

Contrariwise, a local station is at liberty to request the Office for aid in filling vacancies. The Office accordingly maintains an

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3" Administration of federal funds is based on the fact that the effective use of funds in research is largely a matter of personnel and conditions favorable to their research activity. Hence, these matters receive constant attention by the Office. In addition to receiving proper training and preparation for their work, these specialists must be placed in favorable surroundings, protected from interferences, and enjoy at least reasonable degree of security in tenure of office. Continuity in the study of a project is recognized as a fundamental essential, and conditions which make for this and which supply the materials, facilities and atmosphere for research, tend to bring out the best there is in the workers. Conditions may be so unsettled or unfavorable as seriously to hamper or discourage the investigators and thus, in effect, result in diminished effectiveness or even misuse of the federal funds."-Dr. E. W. Allen, Chief of the Office of Experiment Stations.