KEPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. XCIX 



university extension; what constitutes a science of agriculture; 

 methods and values of cooperative experiments. Through social 

 assemblies, visits to typical Ohio farms, and much informal discussion 

 wherever the students met each other, the educational influences of 

 the school were greatly extended. Seventv-five students were in 

 attendance. These were drawn from 28 States and Territories, includ- 

 ing such widely separated regions as Maine, Oregon, California, New 

 Mexico, and Alabama. There was one student from Canada and one 

 from Argentina. There was also one woman, and the colored race 

 was represented by teachers from the Tuskegee Institute and the agri- 

 cultural college at Greensboro, N. C. Twentv-seven of the students 

 are professors or assistant professors of agriculture in agricultural 

 colleges, 31 are assistants in the agricultural colleges and experiment 

 stations, 9 are recent college graduates, and 8 are engaged in farming. 

 Considering the character of the faculty and students, it goes with- 

 out saying that the whole period of the session was occupied with the 

 most earnest and profitable work. Without doubt the influence of 

 this school will be felt throughout the country in the improvement of 

 courses of instruction in agriculture and the strengthening- of the lines 

 and methods of investigation of agricultural subjects. In other ways 

 the school will exert a beneficial influence. So rapid has been the 

 accumulation of materials for a real science of agriculture during the 

 past few years that even professional students of agriculture have not 

 realized how large a mass of knowledge is already available for mold- 

 ing into a s^'stematic body of truth which may be utilized for pedagogic 

 purposes, as well as for inductions of scientific and practical value. 

 The summaries given by the experts gathered at this graduate school 

 have emphasized this fact and shown in a striking manner that agri- 

 cultural education and research ma}' now be properlv and efiiciently 

 organized with reference to the science of agriculture itself, rather 

 than be as heretofore very largely a matter of the sciences related to 

 agriculture. This will serve to stimulate greatly the movement 

 already begun for the reduction of the materials of agricultural science 

 to "pedagogic form" for use in colleges and secondar}^ schools, and 

 for the reoro-anization of agricultural institutions of research on the 

 basis of the divisions andsubdiA'isions of agriculture instead of physics, 

 chemistry, botany, and other primary and secondary sciences. The 

 day will thus be hastened when the science of agriculture will rank as 

 one of the great systems of knowledge of direct benefit to mankind. 



Improvement of Rural Schools. 



We are, without doubt, in this country just on the edge of a great 

 popular movement for the improvement of the conditions of rural life 

 through the improvement of the rural schools. As one phase of this 

 movement there will come the broadening of the instruction in the 



