I would not be understood to deprecate original research, or the
training of expert professional workers in any field, still less as
undervaluing thoroughness in any department of teaching. But I plead
for a sense of proportion, that as long as the world is either so poor
or its wealth and opportunities so unequally distributed, a certain
minimum of vocational training shall be insured to all.

We recognize the need for thorough training in the case of the coming
original investigator, and the expert professional, and they form the
minority. We do not recognize the at least equally pressing need for
the thorough training of the whole working population, and these make
up the vast majority. In so far as the pre-vocational work in primary
schools, the manual work and technical training in high schools,
the short courses, the extension lectures and the correspondence
instruction of universities are meeting this urgent popular need, just
so far are they raising all work to a professional standard, just so
far are they bringing down to the whole nation the gifts of culture
and expert training that have hitherto been the privilege of the few.

I have often noticed college professors, in turning over the leaves of
a university calendar or syllabus of lectures, pass lightly over the
pages recounting the provision made for short courses, summer schools,
extension or correspondence work, and linger lovingly over the
fuller and more satisfactory program outlined for the teacher or
the professional worker. The latter is only apparently the more
interesting. Take Wisconsin's College of Agriculture, for example. It
sends forth yearly teachers and original investigators, but quite as
great and important a product are the hundreds of farmers and farmers'
sons who come fresh from field and dairy to take their six weeks'
training in the management of cattle or of crops, and to field and