Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/149

 formation are inadequate for the solution of the problems of a democracy which no longer owns the safety fund of an unlimited quantity of untouched resources. Scientific farming must increase the yield of the soil, scientific forestry must economize the woodlands, scientific experiment and construction by chemist, physicist, biologist and engineer must be applied to all of nature's forces in our complex modern society. The test tube and the microscope are needed rather than axe and rifle in this new ideal of conquest. The very discoveries of science in such fields as public health and manufacturing processes have made it necessary to depend upon the expert, and if the ranks of experts are to be recruited broadly from the democratic masses as well as from those of larger means, the State Universities must furnish at least as liberal opportunities for research and training as the universities based on private endowments furnish. It needs no argument to show that it is not to the advantage of democracy to give over the training of the expert exclusively to privately endowed institutions."

The people of Wisconsin have demanded this efficiency and the University of Wisconsin has been noted not only for the philosophy of service to the state which has been maintained but for the practical courses which deal with every factor in the life of the state. That Wisconsin has changed from a wheat-growing state to a great dairy state has been due largely to the fact that the agricultural "short course" in the University of Wisconsin, which has been so popular in the past, has turned out real farmers and real dairymen. In 1905, the University of Wisconsin was placed upon a permanent mill tax basis. Its appropriations are now con-