PKOGRESS IN AGRICULTUEAL EDUCATION. 325 



Short courses have increased both in number and variety. A 

 short course for boys and girls who won prizes in the various county 

 agricultural and domestic science contests of Minnesota was held 

 during the week of March 26 with an enrollment of 106. 



A conference on agricultural education was held at the University 

 of Minnesota in July, 1910. The object of the meeting was to formu- 

 late a plan for the future development of agricultural instruction in 

 the State. As a means toward this end resolutions were adopted 

 favoring the gradual extension of State aid to public high schools, 

 graded schools, and consolidated schools for departments of agricul- 

 tural instruction; appropriations for State aid to encourage the con- 

 solidation of small rural schools; increased funds for State teachers' 

 training schools ; liberal maintenance and equipment funds for insti- 

 tutions established for the general training of teachers; a limited 

 number of agricultural schools like those at St. Anthony Park, 

 Crookston, and Morris, with strong faculties and adequate equipment 

 for advanced practical agricultural training; training in industrial 

 arts in graded and high schools, supplemented by continuation 

 schools ; and a State appropriation to be used as premiums for a State 

 industrial contest for boys and girls. 



The rural education department of the Kansas Agricultural College 

 helped in the organization of companies of Rural Life Boy Scouts, 

 The plan was to form local companies wherever six or more boys 

 between the ages of 12 and 20 years desired to become members. 

 These companies are kept in close touch with the agricultural college 

 council, and also with county councils, and a chairman appointed by 

 the agricultural college. Monthly meetings are provided for, with a 

 regular order of business, and rural life camps of instruction for each 

 company. The program of the instruction camps includes games and 

 athletic contests, contests in judging farm crops and stock, naming 

 birds, wild animals, fish, flowers, trees, shrubs, etc., talks on rural life 

 subjects, and other features. 



The scouts are divided into three classes, according to their knowl- 

 edge of birds, wild animals, fish, flowers, trees, and other natural 

 objects, the amount of work they do in the way of cultivating crops 

 and caring for live stock, and the amount of money they have on 

 deposit in their own bank accounts. Thus scouts of the first class 

 are supposed to know by sight and call 50 common birtls of Kansas, 

 by sight and track all wild animals of Kansas, by sight all the common 

 game fish of Kansas, 25 wild flowers, all common trees and shrubs of 

 Kansas, and 25 common weeds. They are to plant and cultivate not 

 less than 2 acres of farm crops, to own and care for some pure-bred 

 domestic animal valued at not less than $25, to maintain a bank 

 account of not less than $25, and to read at least two books on rural 

 life. 



