So far as the law
goes, the national department, which should hold a truly national
position toward State agricultural institutions depending on federal
support, can do little except by suggestion, whether in the line of
directing plans or in any way co-ordinating or controlling the work of
the different stations throughout the country. The men who influenced
and shaped the legislation which resulted in the Hatch bill were
careful that the department's function should be to indicate, not to
dictate; to advise and assist, not to govern or regulate. We have,
therefore, to depend on such relationships and such plans of
co-operation as will appear advantageous to all concerned, and these
can best be brought about through such associations as are now in
convention here.
Without such plans there is great danger of such waste of energy and
means and duplication of results as will bring the work into popular
disfavor and invite disintegration, for already there is a growing
feeling that agricultural experiment is and will be subordinated to
the ordinary college work in the disposition of the federal
appropriations.
What is true of the national department as a whole in its connection
with the State stations is true in a greater or less degree of the
different divisions of the department in connection with the different
specialists of the stations.
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