18S STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The new Home Economics curriculum adopted last year, having now 

 become operative throughout the entire four years of the college course, 

 presents for teaching purposes in this department this year for the first 

 time two additional subjects. There are the Principles of Sociology 

 and a course in descriptive economics, entitled "The Elements of Econ- 

 omics." The first is elective, the second required, and both are full five 

 hour ])er week studies. 



SUMMER SESSION, 



A unique experiment was tried during the Summer Session of 1916 in 

 an endeavor to answer the wide-spread demand for scientific instruc- 

 tion in the subject of farm business. It was held that a somewhat popu- 

 lar but comprehensive treatment of this matter would prove attractive, 

 not only to students but to practical people throughout the State, inter- 

 ested in these lines. The course was therefore gotten up according to a 

 plan which gave two week presentations each to different phases of farm 

 business — Cooperation, Marketing, and Farm Accounting — using spe- 

 cialists for each period of presentation. Unusual good fortune attended 

 the College in securing these specialists, and a list of able men, includ- 

 ing Professor Alex. Cance, Rural Economist at Amherst College, Dr. 

 Edward Jones, Professor of Commerce and Administration at the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan, Dean J. A. Bexell, Professor of Commerce, Oregon 

 Agricultural College, and R. V. Gunn, instructor in Farm Management 

 at the University of Wisconsin, dealt with the different phases upon 

 which they are specialists. 



The experiment seems to have been a perfect success if the enthusiasm 

 with which the courses were attended may be taken as a criterion. The 

 regular enrollment of those taking the subject for credit was at all times 

 in excess of forty, while on many occasions — as the result of visitors from 

 some one or another of the summer conferences in progress here — as 

 many as sixty or seventy students were in attendance. 



SIDE ACTIVITIES. 



The growth of the College in increased numbers of students and in 

 variety and numbers of activities imposes constantly upon heads of de- 

 partments the selective function of trying to tell how their undertak- 

 ings may best be distributed. The head of this department for example, 

 as chairman of the social committee has had to do with the supervision 

 of approximately one hundred and fifty social events during the past 

 year; as Secretary of the M. A. C. Book-buying Association he has per- 

 formed the usual services going with such an office; as Lansing repre- 

 sentative upon the Alumni Council he has attended many meetings of 

 this organization ; and he has served upon the customary number of gen- 

 eral committees. He attended also the National Marketing and Rural 

 Credit Conference in Chicago in December, and through the generosity 

 of yourself and the State Board, the American Economic Association 

 meeting at Washington also in December. One address was given by 

 him at the M. A. C. alumni meeting in Washington during February, an- 

 other at the State High School Teachers of Agriculture meeting in April, 

 and another at the Summer School of Kalamazoo College in July. Ha 



