places the advisory council is made up of a man and a woman from each community in the county."

78

The State program is formulated in a similar way, except that it is general. The specific activities are those represented in the county programs, which taken together really constitute the State programs.

In like manner, too, the Federal extension program consists of the programs of the States and Territories. From time to time it becomes clear that certain policies or projects seem to be advisable in different regions of the country. An informational and educational campaign may be carried out on a fairly large scale to gain recognition and support for such projects, for instance, as diversification of crops and a balanced program of farming in the South. The purpose of this campaign is to aid the States and counties in carrying on their own specific attacks on the problem.

In times of emergency, as during the recent depression, the extension agents may be called upon to render services for various State and Federal agencies. In the case of Agricultural Adjustment Administration this service was chiefly educational, but it was also to some extent administrative or regulatory. Through such emergency activities has arisen a question of policy, yet to be settled, as to the place of the Extension Service in such programs. Should it assist in an exclusively educational way, carrying information to farm people, in an administrative or regulatory capacity, or in both educational and administrative capacities; or should it avoid both educational and administrative activities?

In the year 1935-36 county extension agents were still devoting a considerable part of their time to the emergency programs of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Soil Conservation Service, and Rural Resettlement and other Federal agencies working in rural areas. A total of 18 percent of the time of all county extension agents was devoted to agricultural conservation and 1 percent to assistance with relief programs.79

78 Ibid., pp. 147-9, 156-8.

79 See Meredith C. Wilson, Statistical Results of Cooperative Extension Work: 1936, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Extension Service Circular 266 (multilithed, June 1937), p. 5.

The Cooperative Extension Service of the United States Department of Agriculture and the services administered by the land-grant colleges in the several States face a crucial problem in determining what their proper functions should be. Should they continue to be chiefly educational agencies or should they become regulatory agencies connected with the direct action programs of the United States Department of Agriculture? It is conceivable that the extension program might include both "education" and "regulation," but it seems certain that if this is attempted the regulatory function will soon endanger the effectiveness of the educational program that has been built up over so many years.

In some quarters those who have farm programs to administer prefer to have the extension services assume the responsibility because they feel that their administration would be more honest and effective than that of other agencies. They argue that the object of the extension services of the land-grant colleges should be primarily to serve the individual farmers in their respective States and that the extension services can often serve the farmers best by administering some specific program designed for the farmers' benefit. They also hold that in administering a program, some of the best teaching situations may arise.

Those who believe that the extension services should confine themselves to educational work argue that in order for an extension worker, for example a county agricultural agent, to do effective educational work, he must be welcome and respected wherever he goes-and that if he goes to a man's farm to enforce some Federal or State regulation, he is not likely to be welcome. He may be suspected of favoritism and, gradually, enough opposition will develop to discredit the agent and finally the entire extension system.

The position that the Extension Service should hold closely to its educational objective and avoid performing regulatory functions would seem to be the more tenable. Exceptions should be made only in cases of great emergencies and in a few backward sections of the country where the farmers are not able to handle a particular action program themselves; and even in the latter case the Extension Service should educate the farmers as rapidly as possible to handle

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

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.8

81

TABLE 15.-Percentage of agents' and specialists' time devoted to various projects in cooperative extension work, by year, 1928 to 19361

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.

2 Since 1929 the percentage of time devoted to soils has been included in Farm crops.

3 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

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