Functions Of Service

A school grows big only as its usefulness increases and it will shrink rapidly if inefficient. Usefulness must be recorded in terms of service within the economic structure of the Commonwealth. Under this premise, modern mineral industries colleges must recognize and give equal significance to three interrelated, interdependent functions of service: namely, (1) resident instruction, on both the undergraduate and graduate levels; (2) research under an experiment station plan; and (3) extension training under three classifications, class instruction, correspondence instruction, and informal instruction. To train potential leaders for the mineral kingdom, to discover and teach new truths is only half of the job. Through extension training, equal attention must be given to the on-job, vocational-technical, upgrading of skilled workers on the production line. Similar to the School of Agriculture, the School of Mineral Industries is the only one in the Commonwealth offering the three functions of service in each of the subject-matter fields in mineral arts and sciences. The functions of service must be based on the modern conception of mineral conservation (Fig. 12). Conservation of minerals differs from conservation of natural resources in general because man must find new mineral deposits and excel the geologic forces of nature in processes of concentration. True mineral conservation, therefore, may be defined as energetic discovery,