No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 171 



far reaching they will be content with inferior teachers and min- 

 strel show entertainments. The need for men of superior qualifi- 

 cations for managers is just now specially important. 



The institute movement is in its formative stage, where it needs 

 the most careful planning and direction in order that its organiza- 

 tion and scheme of instruction may be perfected. Unless these foun- 

 dation matters are in capable hands the work will not only not pro- 

 gress but it is sure to rapidly decline. Improvement can only come 

 from careful study of the questions involved in rural education, and 

 by painstaking efl'ort to carry into operation high ideals. Hitherto, 

 there has been but slight opportunity for conference among local 

 managers for determining what are the most efficient methods in 

 institute development, and for settling upon ideals in institute in- 

 struction. Those in control of railroads, mills, mines and mercantile 

 enterprises, find ihat trained managers are a necessity if their busi- 

 ness is to succeed. Formerly, when nothing better was possible, 

 the training came through a long apprenticeship and experience in 

 the practical work of the business. Now it is secured through 

 schools of study, in which principles are taught with sufficient prac- 

 tice to fix the principles well in mind. 



A method for the training of efficient managers is a much needed 

 addition to the institutes. These managers are responsible for the 

 form of organization of their local meetings; for the proper adver- 

 tising of their institutes; the formation of committees; for the prep- 

 aration of the course of study or program that is to be presented; 

 for the selecting of teachers, the number of sessions, the localities 

 in which institutes are to be held, and substantially for the whole 

 work of organizing and conducting the school. If the series of meet- 

 ings are a failure the local managers, first of all, are held responsible. 

 If they succeed, it is largely due to the efforts that they put forth. 



Success from the managers standpoint at present consists in a full 

 house made up of agricultural people, an interesting and instructive 

 program^ and a corps of capable teachers. Success in the future will 

 require much more than this. When the county institute is so or- 

 ganized as to meet each month and have auxiliaries in every township 

 and community, which likewise hold stated meetings; when it will 

 own a farm, stock-breeding barns, plant-improvement plots, and de- 

 monstrate the value of methods by practical tests, and when lec- 

 turers will be employed by the year, at least one for each county in 

 a state, the position of the institute manager will be wholly different 

 from what it is to-day. He will be a paid official and will need a 

 kind of training that the average manager does not possess; a kind 

 of equipment that can only come from the study of science and from 

 experience in work of experimentation as it is now being conducted 

 by the best agricultural experiment stations of the country. The 



