USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume II > Part 47
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years, created the high reputation which the Agricultural College sus- tains throughout the country. The attitude of President Fairchild may be illustrated by his epigrammatic statement that "The purpose of the College is not merely to make men farmers, but to make farmers men."
With the inauguration of President Will, 1897, the college entered upon the policy of a greater diversity in curricula and a marked increase in the number of individual courses offered. The continnance and en- largement of this policy has been possible only because of the larger resources available, and without doubt the acceptance of the policy has made it possible to obtain larger appropriations. Four currieula were offered in 1898, namely: General, agricultural, engineering, and house- hold economies. The last was received with much favor and for many years most of the young women of the college have elected it or its sue- eessors rather than the general science course.
Under the administration of President Nichols, 1899-1909, the work was differentiated still more and four-year college courses were given in agronomy, animal husbandry, horticulture and forestry, poultry hus- handry, veterinary science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, printing, domestic science and art, and general science. Certain fundamental subjects were embodied in all of these ; some of the curricula differed from others in but few subjects, and by means of one or another the legitimate needs of students were supplied. The progress made in developing the pedagogy of agriculture made it possible to offer a fund of systematized knowledge that was unavailable ten years earlier.
In the educational field the administration of President Waters, be- ginning in 1909, has been marked by still greater diversification in the number of subjects offered. Although the number of formulated eur- ricula has been reduced, great flexibility has been attained by permitting a large range of choice of electives in agriculture, by means of which one curriculum in agriculture is made to serve the needs of the most exacting.
The entrance requirements were raised in 1910 from six units to eight units of high school work, and in 1912 were made fifteen units, thus bring- ing the college in this respect up to the recognized standards of first-class institutions. New curricula were formulated, based on these entrance requirements, from which the first class was graduated in 1917. The following curricula are now offered: Agriculture, veterinary medicine, agricultural engineering, architecture, civil engineering, electrical en- › gineering, flour mill engineering, mechanical engineering, home econom- ics, general seienee, and industrial journalism. Incorporated in all of these curricula is a fundamental basis of training in the English language and natural, physical and political sciences. All young men have re- quired training in military science, and young women receive physical training. Each curriculum, in addition to the foregoing, ineludes courses which give it its specific characteristics. In addition most of the eurrienla give opportunity for free election of courses, and those in general science and industrial journalism have large opportunities in this respect. This
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enables the student to follow his bent and tastes in any direction of study available in the institution. The college offers not only the work indicated in the foregoing, but education, music, public speaking, modern languages and advanced work in history, economies, all of the sciences, and in agri- cultural, industrial and household arts. Graduates of the college who receive the required work in education are eligible to receive state teach- ers' certificates.
The college is well prepared to give graduate work in agriculture and sciences closely related thereto, such as bacteriology, botany, chemistry, entomology and zoology, and to a certain extent in any department of the institution. The research work constantly in progress in the experiment stations gives unusual opportunities for students. The graduate work is being constantly developed and strengthened.
Coincident with placing the college on the four-year high school basis there was the organization of a School of Agriculture with three-year courses in agriculture, mechanic arts, and home economics, to which stu- dents are admitted from grammar and common schools. These courses are independent and are not to prepare for college entrance, but to pro- vide definite vocational courses of instruction for students who in the present development of secondary education are unable to get such train- ing in their own localities.
In connection with the college the following shorter courses are offered to those who from lack of time, means or preparation are not able to come for more extended study : Farmers' short course, two eight-week terms; creamery short course, eight weeks ; short course in traction engines, eight weeks ; short course in shop work, eight weeks ; short course in road build- ing, eight weeks; housekeepers' course, one semester; course in Innch room management, one year.
From the preceding presentation it will be seen that the scope of the Agricultural College is very broad. In fulfilling their mission to the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life the land- grant colleges have accepted the responsibility and offered four-year eur- rienla not only in agriculture, but in engineering. This broad interpreta- tion of the term "mechanic arts" has received the unqualified sanction of the United States Government in approving expenditures of federal funds. It has also been sanctioned by the practice of most of the land- grant colleges of the country. In the Kansas college the engineering instruction is especially direeted toward problems and activities of rural importance, but is not restricted to that field. Courses in home economics. thus providing for the technical training of women, have also been by common consent and official action recognized as belonging to the field of the land-grant college. The advantage to the people acerning from offer- ing courses of sub-college grade is such that state support has been readily given to them for nearly every college in the country.
RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION
Agricultural experimentation has been a feature of the college almost from its inception. Its influence on the development of the farming
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practice of the state cannot be estimated. It has been especially service- able in the testing and introduction of new crops or varieties, among the most important being alfalfa, Kafir-corn, milo maize and Sudan grass. Improved seed of staple erops has been extensively distributed, with marked results on the yield and quality of wheat, eorn, sorghums and other erops.
The chief research activity of the college is in connection with the agricultural experiment stations. In addition to the organization at Man- hattan there is the Fort llays branch station at Hays, and other branches at Garden City and Colby. Other points have also been occupied for a limited time. State support only, sustains the branch stations. For the year 1918-19 the Fort Hays station receives $10,000; Garden City, $5,000, and Colby, $2,500. The Hateh and Adams federal funds, $30,000, are expended at Manhattan together with a considerable amount from the general funds of the college through salaries of officers. A total of more than seventy men are partly or entirely oceupied by this investigational work.
At Manhattan the projeets taken up are usually of a fundamental character, the results of which will be of general application. In so far as they have only loeal bearing they apply to Eastern Kansas, while the work at Hays is planned especially to meet the less humid climate of the western part of the state. Loeal conditions dominate the experiments Garden City and Colby.
Space may not be taken for even a list of the agricultural problems that have been, or are being, investigated by the stations. The geo- graphical situation of Kansas is such as to give her considerable diversity in climate, even though this is not complicated by mountains, and there is scareely a feature of agricultural science or practiee that may not find application here. Among the principal lines that have received attention are: Animal breeding, animal nutrition, animal diseases, methods of cropping with relation to soil fertility and crop production, orehard prac- tiee, life history of inseets, insect control, plant diseases and their con- trol, soil moisture, soil survey, heredity, animal improvement, plant im- provement, grain handling and milling, euring and ensiling of feeds, digestibility of feeds, milk production, blackleg vaccine, and hog-cholera serum.
Besides the formal, accurate work of the stations, the college co-oper- ates with hundreds of farmers distributed through all parts of the state, the first appropriation for this work being made in 1911. Promising grain and forage erops are tried, fertilizer and seed-bed-preparation tests are made, and numerous grain-improvement projects carried on. The results obtained under the guidance of the college experts is highly appre- ciated by the farmers, and has had great immediate value in determining the crops best adapted to the different sections of the state. In this con- nection much service is rendered through bringing producers and con- sumers of high-grade seed into communication.
The results of the work of the Experiment Station are published in the form of bulletins, eireulars, and scientifie papers other than bulletins
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and circulars. These bulletins are of two classes, those which record the results of research work of a purely scientific character and those which present technical information in a simplified form, suitable for the gen- eral reader. The circulars are brief and condensed popular presentations of data which call for immediate application, as well as timely and useful information not necessarily new or original. The scientific papers are usually published as reprints of addresses given before scientific bodies. These reprints contain original information, or report definite steps in the progress of investigations under way.
All bulletins and other publications from the Experiment Station are sent without charge to citizens of the state. Any person in the state who so desires may have his name placed on the permanent mailing list of the station.
An Engineering Experiment Station was established in 1910 for the purpose of carrying on tests and research work of engineering and manu- facturing value to the State of Kansas, and of collecting, preparing, and presenting technical information in a form readily available for the use of the various industries within the state. It is the intention to make all of the work of the Experiment Station of direct importance to Kansas.
All of the equipment of the various engineering and scientific labora- tories and shops and of the college power plant are available for this work, while the personnel of the station staff is made up of professors and instructors from the various departments of the division of en- gineering and from the other scientific departments whose work is directly related to the work of this division.
Among the tests now being carried on are investigations of the effect of freezing before it has hardened, on the strength of concrete, the mae- adam-making properties of various Kansas stones, the correlation of the properties of lubricating oils with their special uses, relative economy of the use of gasoline and cheaper fuels in internal-combustion engines, the effect of compression on the explosion pressures of various gas-engine fuel mixtures, the comparative advantages of steam and oil traction engines, the use of bituminous coals in gas producers, power-plant economics, the use of gasoline-electric generating sets for isolated plants, as on the farm, the use of the windmill for driving electric generators for farm lighting, the losses in electric transmission lines, and in town and city distribution systems, the mechanical and electrical properties of commercial copper wire used in pole-line construction, and the effect of chemical composition on the durability and protective power of paints.
Various investigations are being carried on upon brick, concrete, fuels. pipe coverings, belt lacings, glued joints, blacksmith coals, foundry sands, centrifugal pumps, farm water supply, sewage disposal, and problems in farm architecture.
The results of the investigations are published as bulletins and circu- lars of the Engineering Experiment Station, which are sent free to any citizen of the state upon request.
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COLLEGE EXTENSION SERVICE
The service of the college is not limited to giving instruction to the young men and women who seek the facilities within its walls, nor to the discovery of new truth relating to agriculture and other industries. By means of its division of college extension, it attempts to reach every inhabitant of the state, and succeeds annually in respect to over 300,000 directly, and most of the remainder indirectly. More than fifty men and women devote their time exclusively to this division of the college, and the limits set to this article might be consumed in an account of their activities.
The beginning of this work is found in the first farmers' institute ever held, which was conducted at Manhattan, Kansas, November 14, 1868. Similar institutes were held in other towns immediately afterward, and this type of educational work has been continued to the present time. The farmers' institute opens the way for more serious and valuable work. Several hundred are held each year. District conferences assist in co- ordinating effort, and annually a "Farm and Home Week" series of meet- ings is held at the college to which over 1,000 gather from the local organizations.
Extension schools, running five days, carry to many localities more detailed instruction than is possible in the institute, and the subjects cover a considerable range of topies important on the farm or in the home.
Farm bureaus, county agents and district agents get still closer to the continuous educational and business needs of communities, and these are supported by local, college and federal funds. They are doing a great work which is destined to undergo large expansion. In addition to local- ized agents, the college does much similar work through specialists who make hundreds of visits to individual farmers, and advise with them upon these special problems.
A department of rural service presents the advantages of community control and promotion of economic, social and educational enterprises, and assists the people in initiating and conducting them.
A staff of experts advises individuals and communities in respect to engineering projects of the rural regions. These include roads, culverts, bridges, irrigation plans and drainage plans. Drawings, specifications and estimates are furnished, or the proposals of others are carefully investigated and reported upon.
Valuable results have been accomplished through the agency of boys' and girls' clubs. The college employs leaders in this work through whom the clubs are organized and conducted, each taking some definite project in crop growing, stock feeding, gardening, canning, sewing or other work connected with the farm or home. The total membership in these clubs runs into the thousands. State-wide extension work for women is vig- orously prosecuted, several highly trained women giving it their entire time. The work includes lectures and demonstrations before farm and home institutes; organizing and furnishing programs and reference ma- terial for home-makers' clubs and girls' home economic clubs; visiting
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high schools and inspecting departments of domestic science and art to give assistance to teachers who desire help; assisting in making programs and in the study work of women's clubs already organized; teaching in county normal institutes for teachers; judging home economies products at fairs and exhibits; attending and addressing special meetings and Chautauquas ; assisting the home-study service department in the corre- spondence work, and conducting extension schools in home economics of one to two weeks in length throughout the state, both independently and in connection with extension schools in agriculture.
A department of home study is conducted which includes not only a thoroughly organized system of study by correspondenee for credit on college entranee or a college degree, but extensive free reading courses in which those registered are guided in the selection and understanding of the publieations of the college and the United States Department of Agri- culture, and also more comprehensive non-study courses based on stand- and text-books. Hundreds are enrolled in the eredit courses, and thou- sands in the others.
The scope and activity of the division of extension shows how modern educational institutions justify their support by public funds, and the possibilities in earrying seientifie and practical training to masses of humanity who for one reason or another never enter colleges.
REGULATORY AND INSTRUCTION DUTIES
Besides the work of instruction, research and extension carried on by the college, the state has intrusted several lines of inspection and regu- latory work to its administration. Most of these are in connection with the Agricultural Experiment Station.
The state dairy commissioner has his office at the agricultural college and is appointed by the board of administration "to inspect or eause to be inspeeted all the creameries, publie dairies, butter. cheese and ice cream factories, or any place where milk or eream or their products are handled or stored within the state at least onee a year or oftener." He has large power in respect to the operation of establishments handling dairy prod- nets and the produets themselves.
The professor of entomology at the college is a member of the state entomologieal commission ereated to "suppress and eradicate San José scale and other dangerous inseet pests and plant diseases throughout the State of Kansas." In accomplishing their purpose, officers of the com- mission may inspect private property and may treat or cause to be treated, trees, vines, shrubs, plants and grains, and under certain condi- tions may destroy them. No nursery stock may be admitted to the state without inspection.
The state live stock registry board consists of the dean of the division of agriculture, and the heads of the departments of animal husbandry and of veterinary medicine of the college, and have the duty of licensing stal- lions used for breeding purposes within the state and authority to verify
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their breeding, and to classify them. No animal not thus approved and licensed may be legally used for public breeding purposes.
The promotion of forestry in Kansas is, under the law, in charge of the state forester, who has general supervision of experimental and dem- onstrational work in forestry conducted by the experiment station. He promotes practical forestry in every possible way and is a member of the faculty of the agricultural college.
The state has also placed the experiment station in charge of the execution of acts concerning the manufacture and sale of live stock reme- dies, commercial feeding stuffs, and fertilizers. Every brand of these commodities held for sale, or sold, within the State of Kansas must be registered in the office of the directors of the Agricultural Experiment Station, with certain exceptions stated in the laws. Fees are collected under these acts which defray the expenses of carrying out their pro- visions. Inspectors, chemists and others are employed to see that the goods offered for sale are labeled and conform to the requirements of the laws.
Under the provisions of the state food and drugs law, the director of the chemical laboratory is designated as a food analyst for the state board of health, and the board of administration is required to employ "such additional chemists and assistants as are necessary to properly and expe- ditiously analyze such products as are sent to them by the state food inspectors." The University of Kansas shares in this responsibility.
REAL ESTATE AND EQUIPMENT
The Agricultural College is situated on a tract of land somewhat ele- vated above the site of the City of Manhattan, which affords beautiful views of the Kansas River valley and the adjacent hills. The campus occupies the greater part of 160 acres, and is planted largely with a great variety of trees, shrubs and flowers which not only beautify the landscape, but constitute the field and laboratory material for instruc- tion for forestry, floriculture and landscape gardening. Adjacent plots are used as testing grounds for smaller plantings of grains, fruits and vegetables.
The larger fields used by the college are adjacent to the campus, or from one to three miles distant. The total area of land at Manhattan, owned by the college June 30, 1917, was 748 acres, and over 500 acres in addition were leased. The Legislature of 1917 made an appropriation of $50,000 for the purpose of a much needed increase to the lands. With the new purchases, the land owned by the college near Manhattan will be worth about $250,000.
The college buildings are constructed of beautiful cream-white lime- stone, obtained from quarries in the vicinity, and, although of simple architecture for the most part, they constitute, with their setting of trees and shrubbery, one of the most effective groups of college buildings in America. In addition to the stone buildings there are a number of less
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important barns, feeding sheds, store houses, silos, etc., and the total value of the buildings is about $1,000,000.
The several departments of the college are well equipped with modern apparatus and illustrative material. The inventory of June, 1916, gives a classification and values as follows: Apparatus, $177,907; machinery and tools, $97,088; scientific collections, $27,735; furniture and fixtures, $112,637 ; live stock, $138.787 ; miscellaneous equipment, $167,350; books, $105,701; total, $827,205. The college is especially rich in its herds of live stock. The pure bred herds are among the very best in the country. Large groups of grade animals are used in far-reaching fundamental experimentation, and the advantage of these herds to the students of animal husbandry and dairying can scarcely be overestimated. The poul- try flocks also afford every needed facility in this line.
ORGANIZATION
The governing body of the State Agricultural College is the state board of administration, consisting of the Governor, ex-officio, and three others appointed by him. In 1917, these were Governor Arthur Capper, E. W. Hoch, C. W. Green and Wilbur M. Mason. The secretary of the board was Lee Harrison, and the business manager was James A. Kimball. The board of administration has charge of all the state institutions.
At the head of the Agricultural College is the president, Henry Jaekson Waters, and in addition to the executive offices, under his imme- diate direction, the college is organized in five divisions, each under the general supervision of a dean, as follows: Division of Agriculture, Dean William Jardine ; Division of Mechanie Arts, Dean A. A. Potter; Division of Home Economies, Dean Mary Pierce Van Zile; Division of General Seience, Dean J. T. Willard; Division of College Extenson, Dean Edward C. Johnson. The principal of the school of agriculture is Prof. Harry L. Kent. These divisions are organized into thirty-five departments, each with its complement of officers, and the total number of regular em- ployces of the college is over 350.
The mnumber of students of all classes in 1917 was 3,340, of which 68 were graduate and 1,824 collegiate, the remainder being enrolled in short courses, in the school of agriculture, or as special students. The total number of graduates up to 1917 was 3,481. These graduates are scattered through every state of the Union and in many foreign lands. Of "the several pursuits and professions in life," theology, law and politics can claim but a small proportion. The college has not at its call an army of men ready of speech to plead its causes. It must rest its claims on the evidence that in the homes of the land, on the farms, in the shops, schools, seientifie laboratories and business houses of our nation, its educational output is paying a handsome income on the investment made for the industrial elasses, whether this income be in capacity for production, distribution, or service, or in individual satisfaction in life.
The land-grant colleges as a group have grown steadily in national recognition as shown by the enlargement of their scope and increased
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