the colleges of agriculture for operation, management and leadership in larger enterprises as well as on the individual small farm. In Illinois, for example, 4500 people are needed to enter farming each year, just to meet the "turn-over" requirements. The number of college graduates in this annual roll call is at present far too small to fulfill the expectations for maximum leadership and development. When we look to the personnel requirements of "an agriculture with a future as contrasted to an agriculture with a past," in the phrase of Charles B. Shuman, we have a new measure and new specifications. "Farming today is a business, not a way of life," says Mr. Shuman. (Charles B. Shuman, Paper on "The Contribution of the State University to American Life," The University of Illinois, September 24, 1956.) By this concept, the requirements of agriculture are intertwined with the need for trained brainpower in managing American business enterprise and in developing new opportunities. The developments of new business for agriculture may take three forms: the building of new markets, economically through new consumption or geographically; the discovery of new uses for present products; the discovery of new products. The history of American agriculture is replete with examples of all three forms of growth. Thus we are reminded that agriculture is not alone a vocation or profession, and not alone a business. It is also a science. Highly trained technicians are needed, and this message should be conveyed to the young people who have a narrow view of farming. Agronomists, geneticists, animal breeders, plant breeders, cereal chemists, entomologists and botanists are very much needed. "There is," says Dean A. D. Weber of Kansas State College, "a bull market for such men." (TIME Magazine, September 3, 1956, p. 53.) The relationship of education and farm improvement is nowhere more dramatically demonstrated than in the experiment station and extension activities of the Land-Grant Colleges. The Dixon Springs Experiment Station of the University of Illinois is an outstanding example. Located in Pope County in Southern Illinois, research at the 5000-acre station has shown how shortleaf pines can be grown for fence posts, poles and pulpwood while helping to control erosion, protect watersheds, and create wildlife preserves; it has shown how to build pastures and properly to rotate crops which support profitable activity in beef and sheep; it has shown the value of sound veterinary practices in the protection of the animals. Translated into economic values, the report from one county has this exciting story. In 12 years the dollar value of all crops sold in Perry County grew from some $600,000 to 2 1/4 million; the dollar value of livestock sold increased from 1 1/2 million to over 3 million. In 1952 five percent of cattle were infected; in 1958 less than one percent. The inspiration of this experience may be shared by all who will look and listen. Any discussion of the future of agriculture, or any aspect of it, brings us back to the need for trained personnel for management and leadership, for teaching and for research, and education beyond the high school takes on greater and greater importance in all phases of a successful agriculture. To quote Mr. Shuman again, "well-trained youth on the farm is one crop of which we need not fear a surplus." (Careers in Agriculture, p. 13; University of Illinois Bulletin, 1958, Urbana, Ill.) In the history of our country the establishment of universal educational opportunity, the growth in support for the free public elementary and secondary schools, the establishment and development of our State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the founding of many non-public institutions in the public service have all come only after terrific struggle for support and great public debates. But in each generation the issues must be defined anew and the battles fought again. There are those today, as in other years, who say the student should pay the full cost of his education, that enrollments should be restricted for the "intellectual elite," that we cannot afford an expanding system of higher education. If 1957 is recorded as the year of Sputnik, 1958 should be the year when America recognizes more fully than ever before that her chief resources are her human resources and that education is the most important business of the nation. As long as we harvest the talent of the nation from a broad base, encourage its freedom of choice, and provide for adequate educational opportunity, our national achievement will be adequate in the economic, scientific and military competition of the world. In 1866, in an address delivered at the county fair at Monmouth, Ill., Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner, pioneer in the Land-Grant College movement, spoke feelingly of the future of education and the national welfare. After prophesying what the organization of the Land-Grant Universities would do in increasing the wealth of the nation and the "intellectual and social activity and power," he said, "The sun never shone on such a nation, and such a power, as this Whatever may be the appraisal of the work of the President's Committee, or of other groups working on education problems today, the American people have at last started thinking about plans for the future of higher education and education service for post-high school youth. With confidence in the process of democratic appraisal, it may be hoped the school and civic leadership together may build a responsiveness among the people which will be a source of strength and inspiration for the challenging questions of our time. For an appropriate peroration on the meaning of our work and its importance in our time we may well repeat the main burden of the report of the President's Committee, as thus phrased: "What confronts us all is an enormous and unprecedented opportunity to develop the human resources of this nation to a broader and fuller degree than even our most optimistic forebears ever dreamed of. The challenge presented by this opportunity points up, rather than supplants, the cardinal role of education. That role is to develop human beings of high character, of courageous heart and independent mind, who can transmit and enrich our society's intellectual, cultural and spiritual heritage, who can advance mankind's eternal quest for truth and beauty and who can leave the world a better place than they found it. Only by pursuing these paramount goals of education can we insure a free society and a sane and peaceful world in which all individuals may live in greater dignity and achieve greater fulfillment." (Second Report to the President, Summary Report, July 1957. Washington, D. C., p. 16-17.) Evening Session, June 16 Statement by O. Hatfield Chilson, Under Secretary, U. S. Department There is a rather commonly held view that any program of this type of which the Federal government is a part is dominated by the heavy hand of government bureaucracy. However, it is interesting to note, and certainly augurs well for the future of the program, that this Rural Development Program has been kept flexible and decentralized as much as possible to permit the maximum of local direction and the most effective use of government and private agency services. Public and private cooperation is evident at all levels in the program, as evidenced by the splendid group, organizational, and individual participation in this two-day Conference. One of the less frequently thought of areas for cooperation and coordination in this nation wide program deals with the role of churches and religious organizations in Rural Development. This is not a new interest for our church and religious leaders, for we know that from the dawn of recorded history the religious leaders have invoked Heaven's blessing on seed time and harvest. It is fitting and appropriate that we should have with us three eminently qualified citizens to talk to us this evening about "The Role of Churches and Religious Organizations in Rural Development." The Role of the Churches and Religious Organizations Hon. Brooks Hays, President, Southern Baptist (Condensed) I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity of being at this meeting. Now it isn't easy for a Congressman to exhibit humility, but this is one occasion when I honestly and sincerely feel very humble. I know that I am in the presence of men and women who know so much more about the problems of low income farmers and of agriculture generally than I, that I feel in a way it's an act of affrontery for me to take the stage. I probably know more about Baptist doctrine than most of you but it seems to me that that would not be an appropriate subject for me to use tonight. There has been considerable interest in the fact that a member of Congress was elected a year ago as President of a Baptist body. I think my colleagues were rather pleased--they felt it was gratifying that one isn't necessarily disqualified for religious service by reason of his membership in the Congress. We speak tonight, of course, from the viewpoint of the churchman. Unlike any other institution--for the consolidation of schools has made what I am about to say untrue of our education system--the churches are still everywhere. They are at the crossroad. They are rendering, if a meager service--and tragically too often it is meager--they are rendering their service in the far away places of our beloved land. The remotest place still has some type of church service. It is not an adequate service at present. It is not the full and comprehensive, rounded out, religious program that we believe the people ought to have, but the church is everywhere, and it is the historic tie to the past. It is the greatest asset of our region. There is a certain symbolism tonight in the presence of my beloved friend Monsignor Ligutti, for he represents another faith. One of the finest messages that I received when I was elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention was from this great Catholic, the adviser to Pope Pius on rural affairs. And he and I come together entertaining differences, of course. Our differences in doctrine and theology are profound. I do not discount them. I do not minimize them, but with those differences we meet with a common devotion, common faith, and with a sense of dedication to the interests that engage you tonight. You seek to lay stronger economic foundations for a good society, for the good life that has not only foundations in a material well-being--that has a sense of direction--that has a spiritual quality which is most important of all. And so tonight, if we can do nothing else we should add this emphasis this insistence that we must distinguish our life by an appreciation of spiritual qualities. As we undertake, appropriately and justifiably, to improve the physical well-being of people, it seems to me that the emphasis is a good one and that it is appropriate for the program makers to plan a discussion of this profoundly significant force. I had occasion recently to evaluate it, because I made a trip to Russia-for four days I was in the capital of the Soviet empire. For four days I observed the things that are going on in the heart of the Communist orbit. I saw there things that were in sharp contrast with the way of life which I love, with which we are familiar. Yet there are lessons for us in some of the examples they are setting for us, at least a challenge in the headway that they are making in certain limited realms of life. And it is good for us to be humbled a bit by the things that the Russians are doing. But if it is true, and I suppose it was a very good appraisal of their way of life, that they are expert in what Bishop Dana Dawson called "efficient materialism"--that was his characterization of the present order in Russia--an "efficient materialism"--can it be said of us that |