REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 143 



lished in public high schools with the aid of state appropriations. 

 Five such departments were established in Alabama high schools, 8 

 in Louisiana, 10 in Minnesota, 5 in Mississippi, and 10 in Virginia. 

 The importance attached to these new departments is indicated by 

 the fact that in many instances the schools adopted the names of 

 the departments and were called agricultural high schools. 



There has also been a notable increase in the number of institutions 

 conducting teacher-training courses in agriculture. The total num- 

 ber of such institutions is now 214, including 30 land-grant colleges, 

 156 state and county normal schools, and 28 negro schools. Nine- 

 teen of the land-grant colleges offer regular courses for teachers of 

 agriculture and 24 of them conduct summer schools for teachers. 

 This general movement for the training of teachers of agriculture is 

 significant of the importance now attached to the agricultural educa- 

 tion movement. 



The agricultural colleges have had a successful year and a large 

 attendance of students. Their graduates have quite generally chosen 

 agricultural pursuits, and have found no difficulty in securing employ- 

 ment. As an indication of this, 30 of the 38 graduates of the animal 

 husbandry course in Iowa State College will engage in farming, 4 

 will teach in agricultural colleges, and 1 will go into agricultural jour- 

 nalism. Only 3 of these graduates were looking for positions at 

 commencement time and these wanted to become farm managers. 



The fourth session of the Graduate School of Agriculture was held 

 at the Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, in July, 1910. The enroll- 

 ment was larger than at any previous session and the interest mani- 

 fested by the students has never been surpassed. There were 207 

 students from 39 States and the District of Columbia and 6 foreign 

 countries. Eight general lines of instruction were given and import- 

 ant conferences on agricultural extension, agricultural journalism, 

 and elementary and secondary instruction in agriculture were held. 

 The faculty numbered 57, in addition to 17 speakers at special con- 

 ferences. Eleven members of the faculty were from this Depart- 

 ment and the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations was 

 dean of the graduate school. 



farmers' INSTITUTES AND AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION WORK. 



Farmers' institutes are now organized in every State, \nth respon- 

 sible directors in charge and a corps of teachers aggregating over 

 1,000 speciaUsts to give instruction. There was appropriated for 

 carrying on the work last year about S432,000, an increase of $86,000 

 over the appropriation of the year before. There were held 5,651 

 regular institute meetings, composed of 16,586 sessions of one-half 

 day each, with a total attendance of 2,395,908. In addition to carry- 

 ing on the work of the regular institutes the States have been main- 



