288 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



out. I am tired of hearing this line of talk, and I say let us stop 

 these criticisms. 



MR. HERR: About three weeks ago the chairman here asked me 

 to prepare a paper, which I did, on the requirements of the institute 

 worker. Now I want to say a little bit about an institute manager. 

 My friend Rodgers touched the subject very nicely. He has been 

 an institute manager for many years and is one of experience. I 

 will also add that I have conducted all the institutes held in our 

 county and they were among the first held in the State. 



The institute manager is as important as the speakers are in the 

 success of that institute. He ought to be a man of attainments 

 and he ought to know something about human nature. He ought 

 to be a leader among the people, whom the people look to with re- 

 spect, a man of standing, a man of character, and a man of influence. 

 He ought to be a speaker of sufficient force and distinctness to be 

 heard all over the room. The institute manager that gets up and 

 makes announcements that cannot be heard all over the room is a 

 misfit as an institute manager. I remember being introduced on 

 one occasion something like this: ''Now, Mr. Herr will make his 

 speech from Clinton County." You want a man who can foresee 

 any local difficulty that is likely to come up. He must be a self- 

 possessed man and not get mixed up. He must be a parliamentarian, 

 and one who don't get rattled and mixed up because there is noth- 

 ing like the fun for an audience if the presiding officer gets mixed 

 up and don't know where he is. 



There are occasions when some man is going to bore you perhaps 

 with a long speech or something that is not of interest to the audi- 

 ence. Now there is a very mild and nice way of dealing with such 

 'men, and there is also a w^ay of insulting them, and such a situa- 

 tion requires tact and careful handling, and if you have it you can 

 prevent a whole lot of trouble in that line. The chairman should 

 be a man who is firm and courteous to everybody in the audience. 

 He must not be like that man whom my friend Agee once told us 

 about who, when a speaker was occupying too much time and boring 

 the audience, said to him, "Dave, Dave, mv God, sit down, sit down, 

 shut her off!" 



Another important qualification of an institute manager is to 

 be able to comprehend what is going on and to know whether it is 

 practical in the community in which he lives, and when misstate- 

 ments are made — many a time false instruction goes out that is not 

 applicable at all to the place, and if a speaker gives such instruc- 

 tion, it ought to be promptly corrected. It ought to be corrected be- 

 fore people are led in the wrong direction, but the one great qualifi- 

 cation, I might say the first and foremost, is that a man must have 

 his heart in his work. 



MR. NELSON: Mr. Chairman, one of the most important things 

 we have on hand here to-day is to find out how we can get more in- 

 stitutes. Our county has been successful in increasing the number 

 of institutes. I will introduce here a new member of the State 

 Board of Agriculture, who was present at the society meeting last 

 year, who will tell you how we raised the money for those extra 

 institutes, that is Brother E. M. Davis, of Grampian. 



