became much more than the teaching of the relations of the sciences to agriculture.

The need of more than an undergraduate course for the training of experts in agricultural and scientific subjects was beginning to be appreciated and some of the stronger colleges began to have a considerable number of graduate students. For several years prior to 1900 the association had a committee that endeavored to secure some arrangement by which graduates of the land-grant colleges might make use of the special facilities for study and research in the Government establishments in Washington. At one time it seemed as if this might be aided through an office in the Smithsonian Institution, but finally the authorities there decided that this would contravene their established policy of not engaging in educational activities.

The United States Department of Agriculture undertook in 1899 to aid this movement by establishing in cooperation with the Civil Service Commission a register of "scientific aids," which would enable graduates of colleges having proper qualifications to earn a small salary for work in different bureaus, with the understanding that a part of their time would be given to studies outside their regular duties. This arrangement continued for several years and afforded a number of students opportunities to continue studies in special lines and in some cases to enter the permanent service of the Government. After a time, however, difficulties in the administration of such an arrangement, which involved a somewhat limited competition under civil service regulations, led the commission to withdraw its consent to its continuance.

Part 5. EXPANSION AND DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICUL

TURAL COLLEGES, 1900-1914

GENERAL CONDITIONS FAVORING GROWTH OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES

By the opening of the twentieth century a period of unparalleled general prosperity of American agriculture had set in. Economic conditions favored the multiplication and enlargement of industries and the expansion and diversification of agriculture. Settlement in new agricultural regions in the West increased, and the rising prices of products and land in the country generally encouraged young men to work on farms and acquire land for the establishment of homes in the country. Special difficulties which hampered production in various regions called attention to the desirability of more scientific farming and the need of a knowledge of the means of controlling plant and animal diseases and insect pests as such means were being developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and the experiment stations.

While the relative number of people engaged in agriculture as compared with the number in other industries decreased, the total number of farmers increased, and conditions, including the invention and wide use of much farm machinery, favored a great increase in the efficiency of American farmers as measured by the yield of products per man.

The experiment stations and the United States Department of Agriculture were reaching great numbers of the more intelligent farmers and were assembling a great body of tested knowledge for use in agricultural education. Not only were very many official publications freely distributed, but agricultural journals, manuals, and textbooks were rapidly increasing in numbers and extent of distribution.

In the colleges agricultural faculties were growing larger, and more adequate material equipment for their work was being provided. The general content of the agricultural courses had been fairly well defined comprehensively, and specialization, particularly in the branches connected with agricultural production, was proceeding. There was much discussion of the problems connected with curriculum making for both long and short courses. The number of agricultural students was increasing, and their standing in the colleges and universities was much improved.

DEVELOPMENT OF COLLEGE ORGANIZATION

As the faculties and student bodies in the agricultural divisions of the land-grant institutions grew and the variety of duties of these institutions increased, the necessity for a more complex organization became apparent. The presidents of the universities and of the

larger colleges ceased to function as teachers. The universities were usually divided into colleges, among which was a college of agriculture. The special officer at the head of this college was usually called a dean. The college had a faculty, in which the workers in agriculture and the sciences directly relating thereto were usually employed full time, but often divided their time between teaching and research. The teachers of other subjects were either wholly in the service of that college or were wholly or partially engaged in other colleges of the university. Thus, for example, general chemistry might be taught in the college of arts and sciences and agricultural chemistry in that college or in the college of agriculture. Each college was divided into a number of subject-matter departments. At first all of the agricultural instruction was given in one department, but gradually it was divided and subdivided into departments of agronomy, horticulture, soils, animal husbandry, poultry, dairying, rural engineering, rural economics, etc.

Each department was given a head or chairman, who had general supervision of its work and to a greater or less extent the choice and management of its personnel.

The agricultural and mechanical colleges had an organization which approximated that of the university in so far as the size of the college and the variety of its duties necessitated a more or less elaborate organization.

When the agricultural experiment stations were organized, under the Hatch Act of 1887, they became distinct departments of the college or university as the Federal law required. The title of director had come into use to designate the head of an experiment station organized as a separate institution. That title was carried over to the college stations. For fear of weakening the authority of the chief officer of the college or for what was supposed to be proper economy in the use of funds, the president of the institution or the dean of the agricultural college was at first often designated also director of the station. His position was often made more attractive by increase of his salary on account of the new duties involved in the management of the station.

While this arrangement seemed justified at first on account of the conditions prevailing at many of the land-grant colleges it often did not work well as a permanent arrangement. The president sometimes had little knowledge of agricultural science or practice, and even the deans were greatly hindered in giving the stations efficient management by the increase of duties relating to teaching and the discipline of students or by reason of their lack of real interest in agricultural research. The Hatch Act brought to the agricultural colleges what for the time was an unusually large fund for research, and when to this were added considerable amounts of State funds, which often imposed regulatory as well as experimental duties on the station, its management really required the full time of a specially trained and capable director. The college presidents gradually withdrew from the station directorships, but the custom of giving this designation to the deans persisted and has not yet been altogether abrogated. Various arrangements have been made in efforts to strengthen the station administration through the appointment of vice directors or other administrative assistants

or by giving the heads of the subject-matter departments broader administrative functions.

In some cases the station was made a more or less separate organization attached to the college, with a director who reported to the president or even to the trustees, and had a staff with a considerable number of members wholly under his control and others detailed from the college departments to the station for part of their time. This was not a very satisfactory arrangement, since the station and the teaching division of the college needed to have close and well-correlated relations.

The growth of the extension work of the colleges brought about the employment of technically trained persons and clerks who gave their whole time to this work. Many college and station officers and other employees also engaged in this work part of the time. This development created new administrative problems in the colleges. At first the extension workers were attached to the different subject-matter departments and did their work under the supervision of the heads of these departments. But it was afterwards necessary to locate authority for their schedules of travel, attendance at meetings, and other extension business in some central organization within the college to avoid administrative confusion and friction. Faculty committees on extension work were sometimes appointed, but these did not prove very satisfactory. Then extension departments or divisions were created. Whereupon an administrative problem arose, similar to the one previously created by the establishment of the experiment stations. The extension department was in some cases made a distinct division of the college with a separate force; in other cases it was composed of members of the subject-matter departments, forming a somewhat loose organization under the supervision of the dean or station director.

When it became evident that a Federal law would be enacted under which large grants of money from different sources would be given to the colleges for the maintenance of a broad system of extension work, thus making such work a large and permanent function of the land-grant colleges, the organization of this work was actively discussed in the several colleges and in their association. There was great variety of opinion and practice, but the discussion more and more definitely went on around the proposition that the whole agricultural work of a land-grant institution should be administered by a dean, under whom there should be directors of research, resident teaching, and extension work, respectively.

This plan was definitely stated in a paper by the director of the Office of Experiment Stations at a conference on extension teaching in agriculture at the Southern Commercial Congress in 1912. The main features of the plan may be summarized as follows:

The State colleges in which agriculture was taught were institutions broadly organized to give instruction in many subjects, and in 20 States the agricultural college was a part of the State university. It was generally agreed that the agricultural work of the institution should be organized as a distinct unit, to which the name college of agriculture was commonly given. Within this college were three main lines of activity-research, resident teaching, and ex

tension work. It would be desirable, therefore, that three administrative divisions be made within the college to which the names agricultural experiment station, division of instruction, and extension division might be given. But it was also appropriate, and indeed essential, that the college as a whole should be divided according to the subject matter included within its curriculum into departments such as agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying, etc.

Since it was highly important that the information on any subject given to the students and public should represent the views of the institution as a whole, all the experimenters, teachers, and extension workers should be grouped by departments representing the specialties in which they were working. Thus the department of agronomy should embrace all the agronomists employed by the college, whether engaged in experimenting, teaching, or extension work. Each department was to be presided over by a chief, who would have authority to assemble all the workers in the subject for consultation regarding the subject matter of their work, methods of instruction, etc. All the workers were expected to keep in close touch with their respective departments, so as to be fully acquainted with the work of their associates and the progress of knowledge in their subjects.

On the other hand, each member of a department was also to be a member of a division, or in some cases of two or three divisions, and was expected to report to one or more division directors who would have authority to control the whole or parts of his time and assign him to duties as experimenter, teacher, or extension worker. This dual responsibility was already recognized in many institutions in regard to the experiment station and teaching work and needed only to be extended to cover the extension work. As far as possible it would be desirable that the individual devote himself primarily and chiefly to one line of work, and as the extension work increased it would be necessary more and more to have men working exclusively in that department. This was already true with regard to the experiment-station work.

To carry out such an organization several classes of administrative officers would be required. The general management of the university or State college as a whole was to be vested in a president. Under him would be a number of deans, one of whom would have. charge of the college of agriculture. Under this dean there would be three directors (1) the director of the experiment station, (2) the director of the teaching division, and (3) the director of the extension division. Each of these directors was to have administrative control of his division. Where the work and staffs of the division overlapped or cooperative action was desirable, the three directors would constitute a general administrative committee under the chairmanship of the dean. The directors were to arrange for the division of the individual worker's time and his assignment to duties within the respective divisions.

The general program for the work of the college was to be made up by the faculty, consisting of the dean, directors, heads of departments, and other professors whose rank entitled them to faculty membership under the general policy of the institution. This pro