The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/True, Alfred Charles
TRUE, Alfred Charles, American educator
and agriculturist: b. Middletown, Conn.,
5 June 1853. He was graduated at Wesleyan
University, Connecticut, from which he also received
a decrees of D.Sc., and after a graduate course
at Harvard, 1882-84, was an instructor at
Wesleyan, 1884-88. He then entered the United
States Department of Agriculture; was
successively editor, vice-director and director
(1888-1915) of the office of experiment
stations, and became director of the State Relation
Service in 1915. For many years he was
editor-in-chief of the Experiment Station
Record and the Experiment Station Work, and
had charge of investigations in irrigation,
drainage and human nutrition. He still has
supervision of the Federal work and expenditures
for agricultural experiment stations in
all the States and in Alaska, Porto Rico,
Hawaii and Guam, and for co-operative
extension work in agriculture and home economics
throughout the United States under the Smith-Lever
Act of 8 May 1914, together with
investigations in home economics and agricultural
education. In 1914 he was president of the
Association of American Agricultural Colleges
and Experiment Stations, and since 1902 has
been dean of the Graduate School of
Agriculture maintained by the association. He is
the author of monographs on agricultural
experiment stations in the United States and on
agricultural education.