14 Keport op the Director. 



is of the greatest possible value to the welfare of the state. If a 

 few hundred energized young men can be sent into the agricultural 

 districts each year the results within a generation will be beyond all 

 calculation. Since there are no secondary schools that are prepared 

 to give the kind of instruction that is demanded by the agricultural 

 people, it has devolved upon the agricultural colleges to take up 

 these questions, with the result that winter-courses have been organ- 

 ized in very many institutions of the country. These winter-courses 

 constitute a stage or epoch in the revolution of industrial education. 

 It is possible that the future will see them segregated into institutions 

 by themselves, although it is highly probable that these institutions 

 will in larger part be directly connected with the regular agricultural 

 colleges. In order that the whole subject of winter-course instruction 

 may be presented in brief space I will make a somewhat full discussion 

 of it. This I consider to be important at this time in order to place 

 the whole subject in its proper relations and because also we seem 

 now to have come to a point where a rather thorough reorganization 

 of the work should be made. I, therefore, record the data of our 

 winter-course instruction. 



The desire to get nearer to the people has led to the establishment 

 of short and winter courses in many of the agricultural colleges. In 

 these it is the purpose to give the pupil knowledge of some of the 

 fundamental principles of science as applied to agriculture and to 

 offer him some training in a few of the more careful handicrafts of the 

 farm. Winter-course instruction, as now understood, appears to 

 have originated with the University of Wisconsin. However, many 

 efforts were made in earlier times in the direction of popular and 

 abbreviated courses. This effort found expression ui the Ohio 

 Agricultural College, established at Oberlin in 1854. In 1866, Yale 

 offered a "shorter course in agriculture," with the follomng announce- 

 ment : 



"For this course the instruction is so arranged that the more 

 important topics, viz. : Practical Agriculture, Agricultural Chemistry 

 and Physiology, Agricultural Zoology, Physical Geography, Forestry, 

 etc., are discussed during the fall and winter terms of each year (Sep- 

 tember to April, with vacation of two weeks at the holidays). Those 

 who desire can thus attend, during seven months of the year, such a 

 selection of the most useful exercises from the studies of the full course 

 as will occupy their time profitably." 



Ohio State University at Columbus, the outgrowth of the earlier 

 institution at Oberlin, made an effort in the winter of 1877-8 to 

 interest farmers in a course of lectures. President Orton made the 

 following reference to the subject in his annual report dated Novem- 

 ber 6, 1878: 



