Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/391

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physiological and psychological conditions of efficiency as factors in the labor problem. It was shown how the progress of science has resulted in the abandonment or modification of the hard and fast theories of the classic school of political economists and the substitution of more flexible formulas, suited to the number and variety of facts brought to light by newer methods of investigation not only in economic and social science, but in the so-called exact and natural sciences as well. Modifications of old 'laws' also become necessary as the result of the progress of applied science, the extensive use of machinery, e. g., tending to modify the operation of the 'law of diminishing returns.' Agricultural science, or more accurately, the agricultural sciences, stand in the closest relation to the economic situation in any civilized country, and consequently not only to the science of economics, but to governmental policy.

President Wright's address was typical of the interests and objects for which the association exists. has consistently maintained that science is not a thing apart, the curious pastime of an exclusive clique, but that it is nothing more nor less than the most complete and exact statement of fact that can be reached by the most careful and thorough methods of inquiry, and that