In the institutional farm at Fargo there are 953.8 acres, divided as follows:

The 29 buildings at Fargo, including barns and sheds, have cost approximately $555,000; the value of equipment is estimated at $315,730; the annual income from all sources for the year ended June 30, 1915, was $429,382.45.1

The total income from producing lands to June 30, 1915, was $1,263,146.61.

ORGANIZATION.

It is explicitly provided in the laws establishing the North Dakota Agricultural College and Experiment Station, cited herein, that administrative authority for the entire institution is vested in the board of trustees, whose chief executive officer is the president of the college. During the early years of the institution, therefore, the president of the college was recognized as director of the experiment station also.

A department of college extension was organized by the faculty in 1910, which was formally recognized by vote of the board of trustees October 11, 1911. The legislative assembly of 1913 legalized the department of agricultural extension, and appropriated $20,000 for its maintenance for the following biennium. Although the governor vetoed the appropriation, the veto did not repeal the law establishing the department, and it was continued through the use of college funds for its maintenance.

The sections of the law relating to the faculty recognize the "institution" as embracing all college activities, including "the experiment station farm and results of farm experiments"; and all members of the station staff, as well as of the instructional force, are included in the term "faculty."

REORGANIZATION.

During the year 1911 the Better Farming Association was organized and financed by the lumber, elevator, railroad, and banking interests of Minnesota and North Dakota. The association was under

1 For detailed statement of all these items, see Appendix V, Table 45, and IX, Tables 49-51.

the control of a board of directors, 21 in number, mostly North Dakota bankers.

On January 1, 1914, an arrangement was effected between the board of directors of the association and the board of trustees of the agricultural college by which the Better Farming Association was merged with the agricultural experiment station, and the secretary of the association became the director of the experiment station. The agreement between the two boards provided that the enterprises inaugu rated by the Better Farming Association "shall be vigorously carried on in substantially the same manner and with no material curtailment" under the control of the director of the experiment station, "who shall be accountable only to the board of trustees of the North Dakota Agricultural College and Experiment Station, and such director shall also be in supreme charge of" the extension work and allied institutions started by the association.

It was further agreed that "the extension department of the institution shall be placed in the experiment station and that the director of the experiment station shall be made ex officio chief of said department or division," and that in administering the activities of the extension division the director shall be responsible only to the board of trustees of the college.

It appears, therefore, that there is now no official relationship between the college and the station, save that both are under the control of the same board. The organization provides for a president of the college and a director of the experiment station and extension division, coordinate in rank but with no mutual responsibilities. The existing arrangement is clearly not in accord with the meaning and evident intent of fundamental State law.1

The agricultural experiment station is the research department of the agricultural college, and the relation of the director of the experiment station to the president of the institution should be coordinate with that of the dean of agriculture.

There should be created the position of director of the extension division, coordinate with that of dean of agriculture, and that of director of experiment stations.2 The extension work in North Dakota, as in other States, must grow in magnitude and importance.

1 Since the date of the commission's investigation the plan of organization outlined above has been changed to comply with the law.

2 The following extract from the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture (1915) indicates that the authorities of agricultural colleges will find it necessary to coordinate the work of the experiment station and the extension organization:

"The institutions have created separate divisions or services and have brought under them all extension work in agriculture and home economics. Some of these divisions are not yet as clear-cut as they should be. In some cases laws or general administrative regulations adopted years ago have continued a confusing union of the extension organization with the experiment station. In 36 States a separate officer is in charge of the work, usually with the title of director; in 9 this officer also is head of the experiment station or of the college of agriculture."

It will have a profound influence upon the experiment station itself, since the more the knowledge of scientific agriculture is extended among the farmers of the State, the more they will become interested in research problems.

According to the 1915 Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 36 States have separate officers in charge of the extension work, usually with the title of director. In 9 States only is this officer also the head of the experiment station or of the college of agriculture.1 The extension work, therefore, is important enough and great enough to demand the entire time of an able scientist who is fitted by experience and training to bring to the farmers of the State the latest practical results of agricultural investigations, whether con. ducted in North Dakota or elsewhere. This officer should be in close touch with the director of the experiment station, the dean, and the president of the agricultural college, and also with the normal schools, the agricultural high schools, the granges, and other organizations of farmers, and all those engaged in agricultural pursuits.

The outline of organization of the work of the college, as given elsewhere, indicates a division of responsibility which the survey commission believes can not fail to prove a source of weakness. Power and efficiency would no doubt be promoted by closer organization and a larger grouping of these departments, divisions, schools, and courses under fewer responsible heads. The position of dean of biology, for instance, seems to be superfluous, inasmuch as the duties of this position fall more properly under the jurisdiction either of the dean of agriculture or the director of the experiment station. TEACHING BY MEMBERS OF THE EXPERIMENT STATION STAFF.

The State suffers a great loss whenever a group of highly trained experts is assembled in connection with an experiment station if the duties of the members of the staff do not require or permit a reasonable amount of instruction of students. It is believed that a reasonable amount of teaching would not injure, but would improve, the scientific staff.

It is therefore recommended that, with a few exceptions for cause, at the discretion of the president, members of the staff of the experiment station be required to devote at least a certain designated minimum amount of time to the work of teaching and directing students. The amount for each investigator should be determined by the president of the institution, in consultation with the director in charge of research work.

This recommendation must not be understood to favor a plan whereby research work will be burdened with much teaching, to which research workers on an experiment station staff should prob

1 See footnote 1, p. 53.

ably devote not more than an hour or two daily. Sometimes, when important and engrossing work is under way, all teaching should be temporarily discontinued. The laboratories of the experiment station should be accessible to the teaching staff of the college.1

THE AGRICULTURAL AND MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL.

The agricultural and manual-training high school at the agricultural college was organized in 1909 to meet the legitimate demand which then existed for a preparatory school. But this was before the movement for the establishment and maintenance of high schools in city, town, and country was well under way. Because of the progress of this movement the demand for a preparatory school at the college is now less insistent than it was, and it should soon cease to exist. Indeed there is danger that the continuation of this school may retard, to some extent at least, the development of high schools throughout the State. Certainly it would do so if it drew many of its students from the State at large. This, however, it does not do. Of the 138 students enrolled during the year 1914-15 in this preparatory school, 58, or 42 per cent of the whole, were from Cass County, and of the 94 enrolled in the first, second, and third years of this school 42, or nearly 45 per cent, were from this county. It is therefore evident that this preparatory school functions largely as a local high school in a county which is amply able to maintain high schools for all its boys and girls.

As a part of the work of this school, a course for rural teachers is offered. To this there is the same objection as to the low-grade courses for rural teachers at the normal schools. The agricultural college should, as elsewhere pointed out, prepare teachers of agriculture, home economics, and industrial subjects for the high schools and supervisors of these subjects for the elementary schools. But as the standard of requirements for teachers in the schools of the State is raised, there will be no demand for teachers of the low grade of preparation which this preparatory school now turns out.

The survey commission believes that this school should be discontinued as soon as the board of regents finds it practicable to do so.

1" According to the German idea, the university professor is both teacher and scientific investigator, and such emphasis is laid upon the latter function that one ought rather to say that in Germany the scientific investigators are also the instructors of the academic youth. ** * The important thing is not the student's preparation for a practical calling, but his introduction into scientific knowledge and research.Paulsen's German Universities' (Thilly's translation).

"It is considered by all educational authorities that the investigator who is doing a limited amount of teaching does the best work for the advancement of science. Teaching makes it necessary for a man to go over his subject broadly, and the presence of young and earnest minds is always very stimulating to the investigator. The man who spends all his time in particular research too often loses his connection with everything else, with the result that he becomes buried in one subject. The greatest investigators have always been great teachers."-President CHARLES W. DABNEY.

The discontinuance should be gradual, as recommended in the summary of recommendations.

It is worthy of note that the agricultural college offers 27 courses in architecture and architectural engineering; that there were only 7 classes in these courses during the week of April 10, 1916, and that 4 of these classes had two attendants each and 3 had only one attendant each. It is not known how many of these were the same students enrolled in more than one class. Two of the classes were in freehand drawing, 2 in design, 1 in water color, 1 in the history of architecture, and 1 in the history of sculpture and painting. Evidently there is little demand for architecture and architectural engineering by the regular students of the college. It is doubtful if the demand is as yet sufficient to justify the expense, and it seems that the few students in these courses might better get the same instruction in the classes in these and similar subjects at the university, where the classes are larger than at the agricultural college, but still comparatively small.

SHORT COURSES.

The large attendance on the short courses at the agricultural college (in 1915-16, 195 for the four 22-weeks courses and 400 for the courses from 10 to 18 weeks in agriculture, engineering, and domestic science) shows a great demand for practical courses of such length and given at such times as make it possible for young men and women to attend without interfering to any large extent with their work on the farm. The experience of Minnesota and some other States shows the possibility, and the commission believes the advisability also, of organizing the 22-weeks courses into a school of agriculture, elementary mechanic arts, and household arts for those who do not expect to attend college or to become teachers. This school should, it is believed, offer courses of three years, and it is also believed it might be well worth while to try the experiment of repeating the winter courses with the necessary variations in a summer session. The shorter courses should be allowed to remain separate, as they are now. They should not, however, be taught as some of them now are in the regular classes of the college, of the agricultural and manual training high school, or of the longer 22-weeks courses. Those who come for these classes can be better served in classes planned for them alone, and the college can, it seems, well afford to provide such classes. If this separation of these classes from the regular departments of the college requires more instructors, then a larger draft might be made during these weeks on the time of experiment station men, and help might be had from extension workers and farm demonstration agents.