Ill 



(4) Impress upon the public, and particularly the rural population, through 

 the press, from the jilattOrm, and in every other effective way, not only the great 

 advantages of technical training in agriculture, but also the freedom and 

 pleasures of country life. 



We should remember that it has taken many, many joars to develop the 

 strong sentiment which prevails everywhere in favor of higher education. The 

 pulpit, the press, and every intelligent force has been emphasizing the advan- 

 tages of higher education for centuries. It may take many years to develop 

 among the farmers of this coiuitry a strong sentiment in favor of agricultural 

 education. AVe should feel encouraged with the results s.) far. What other 

 great educational movement has made such rapid strides? The outlook is 

 hopeful. Let us not grow weary in welldoing. 



E. Daveivpobt. of Illinois. It is pretty well understood, and has been for a 

 good many years, that the technical portions of the courses in our agricultural 

 colleges are not quite so interesting to students as some other subjects taught. 

 This has been due in many cases to the lack of men to properly develop the 

 subject of agriculture, although the idea that the difficulty of giving good 

 instruction in agriculture is due to the nature of the subject has not entirely 

 pas.sed :i\vay. The organization lists of the land-grant colleges show a tre 

 inendous difference in the number of instructors in agriculture, the figures 

 varying from two-thirds of a man to over 20 men in different institiUions. 

 So far as I know the interest in agriculture in these institutions on the part 

 of the student is about in proportion to the number of men who are teaching 

 the subject. Excluding household science, which is hardly in the field we 

 are di-scussing, the college cf agriculture of the University of Illinois offers 

 73 courses in agriculture. Of these, GT different courses are actually taught 

 this year. The proportion of technical to nontechnical work has some- 

 thing to do with the interests of the student. I think we ought to con- 

 sider whether a student should spend one-half or one-fourth of his time in agri- 

 culture. In our institution we expect him to spend one-half his time in this 

 subject, but our object is to teach subjects, not to conduct students through set 

 courses, the student making up his course of study out of courses of Instruction 

 offered by the institution. The students demand these specialized courses, and 

 are demanding that they shall be still more specialized. We used to have a 

 subject we called stock judging, in which the student was to judge horses a 

 while, then cattle, then sheep, and then hogs, and we thought that was a proper 

 unit. We learned that some students were especially interested in one kind 

 of animal and not in the other kinds, and so we divided the subject. We put 

 the light horsesi in a class different from the heavy horses, the beef cattle 

 tiiffereiit from the dairy cattle, and we separated the sheep and hogs. Wo 

 have men following each subject. To a man who is to be a producer of !)eef 

 or a breeder of beef cattle information about dairy cattle is the veriest rubbish. 

 Technical instruction to be of any consequence or interest to the student must 

 he directly applicable to the business in hand. The student ought not to be 

 required to waste his time with the kind of technical instruction which is of no 

 use to him. It is our i)urpose, therefore, to so shape the courses that each, 

 student shall get the particular kind of technical instruction he wants or needs 

 for a definite line of work. The problem before all of us is to so man the agri- 

 cultural departments that we can not only teach the stock knowledge we have 

 in hand .-it the present time, but can develop new sources of information. The 

 unit is the subject to be taught, and not the numbers to be taught. If the agri- 

 cultiire is simple it takes fewer men. but if it is mixed it will take many men. 

 It will take men enough to develop the subject, irrespective of the students. 

 We now have more teachers of agriculture than we had students five years ago. 

 And the contention was then we did not need any instructors until we had more 

 students. I said, we will never have more students until we have more instruc- 



23880— No. 153—^5 m 8 



