278 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Garfield: Several years ago, perhaps ten, Mrs. Mayo, who is the 

 best woman worker in the grange in our State, appeared before the Board 

 of Agi'iculture and made an appeal for the farm girls, asking that the 

 Board of Agi-iculture recognize the responsibility as great in connection 

 with the girls of the farm as the boys of the farm, and promised that 

 if the board wonld make public recognition of that fact that she would 

 do her best in connection with our large rural organization to furnish the 

 raw material. The B.oard of Agriculture, after discussing it up and 

 down, to and fro, got the farmers interested in taking testimony in other 

 States where co-education along rural lines had been established, decided 

 upon the establishment of a women's course. Mrs. Mayo and her asso- 

 ciates did their part well. At the outset there was a goodly number of 

 girls started in at the college to take the Avoman's course. After two 

 years the State Legislature recognized the importance of this depart- 

 ment in the agricultural department to this extent that it appropriated 

 for the finest building on the campus, so that in Michigan the education 

 of the girls at the agricultural college is perfectly co-ordinate with the 

 education of the boys, and those things best adapted to the needs of the 

 girls in growing to be liome makers will be won in-time. It is not perfect 

 now, but we hope by-and-by to incorporate some of the very delightful 

 things in it which Mrs. Meredith suggested as generic. I was so glad 

 to have her start out with the principle that it was the expenditure of 

 money that was particularly woman's work in the world, the expenditure 

 of money in connection with the building of liome. Now it seems to me 

 that that must be kept to the. front in connection with the agricultural 

 college. It is not simply the acquirement of scientific education, of knowl- 

 edge simply of things, but knowledge of how to accomplish certain things 

 with this factor, money, in hand. 



We. are making mistakes over in Michigan. Mistakes are always 

 made in connection with new' things of tliat kind, because it is an un- 

 trodden field, but we are gaining a great deal on it, and we have great 

 hopes for the future. 



We copied from Indiana years ago, when we put in a mechanical 

 course in an agi'icultural college in Michigan, and it has been a success; 

 and" while I would not ask Indiana to copy from us, yet you can do as 

 we did, make a venture in that line. 



Professor Webster: I really do not know Avhat is to be done in the 

 agricultural college in that direction; I can not tell you and I do not 

 know why Professor Latta asked me to tell you. I have no personal 

 knowledge of the exact course that they are pursuing, but I hope that 

 they are taking precisely the same course that Mrs. Meredith has sug- 

 gested. 



Professor Newton: While I agree with the advancement that is being 

 made in the agricultural colleges, yet I would like to have it broaden out 



