No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 243 



embracing many practical subjects as well. The purpose is to tit 

 the students for becoming productive members of the State. 



The National Government has defined its position on this subject, 

 at least so far as relates to agriculture and the mechanic arts, by 

 establishing in the several states, from the public funds, colleges 

 for the higher education of the people, and by endowing experiment 

 stations, for conducting scientific investigations in agriculture, in 

 maintaining the National Department of Agriculture at Washington, 

 and in distributing to the public the information which these insti- 

 tutions collect. The principle, therefore, that it is proper to appro- 

 priate public money for education, outside of that given for the sup- 

 port of the old time common or public school, is recognized by highest 

 authority. 



COUNTRY CHILDREN. 



The last census gives the total number of children in the United 

 States, between five and eighteen years, at 21,404,322, out of a total 

 population of 76,303,387. There are in the country 5,700,341 farm 

 homes. The average number of occupants for each home, is given 

 at four and six-tenths (4.6) persons. This makes the total agricul- 

 tural population of the country, living in farm homes, about 26,221,- 

 568, or thirty-four and thirty-six hundredths (34.36) per cent, of the 

 entire population. The proportion of children to the total popula- 

 tion is, therefore, twenty-eight (28) per cent. Carrying this same 

 proportion into the calculation of the number between the ages 

 of five and eighteen years in farm homes, we have a total of 7,342,- 

 039 children of school age belonging to the farm families of the 

 United States, which leaves as the number of adults in farm homes 

 18,879,529. These last are all out of school excepting the few that 

 are in the academies and colleges. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE INSTITUTE. 



For those who are engaged in agriculture, the Farmers' Institute 

 has been organized. It is a school, not an entertainment or minstrel 

 show, or an arena for clowns to display their antics, but a school of 

 practical science of high grade. A school in which are gathered the 

 working farmers, housewives and farmers children, for the study of 

 the problems that confront them in the prosecution of their art. 



The Institute undertakes to instruct these farmers, by having 

 such facts, relating to agriculture, as have been discovered and dem- 

 onstrated to be most valuable for their use, presented and explained, 

 and by showing how these discoveries of science may be applied to 

 the improvement of the farmers' methods so as to enable him to 

 increase his product with the least effort and expense. 



