71 



"A groat many of tlioni now look to the city for the faseination and charm of 

 life. They look ui)oii their homes as j)laces of drudgery and are anxious to get 

 away to the city. I found that thoy had heon brought ni) to despi.se housework 

 and the work that relates to the homes. As I have seen these girls and their 

 homes, I realize that it is important to make them feel that they don't need to 

 come to the city or away from their homes to find work and noble work. Their 

 homes can be made fascinating. I think it is worth our while." 



THE RELATION OF THE EXPERIMENT STATION TO FARMERS' 



INSTITUTE WORK. 



L. A. Clinton, Storrs, Conn. The greatest agencies which are making for the 

 advancement of agricultural education at the nresent time are the agricultural 

 press, the farmers' institutes, the agricultural colleges, and the agricultural 

 experiment stations of our country. These are not necessarily placed in their 

 order of relative importance, but without doubt the greatest agency in popular 

 agricultural education is the press. The number of readers of the agricultural 

 papers each week and month is unquestionably greater than the number 

 reached by any other means. 



Farmers' institutes had their origin in this comitry about 1ST0. While agri- 

 cultural meetings had been held previous to this time, and even as early as 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century instruction was being given by means 

 of lectures, yet no organized effort was made to hold farmers' institutes until 

 about the date above mentioned. Iowa and Massachusetts were among the 

 first to organize a campaign of agricultural education through farmers' insti- 

 tute methods. In Michigan as early as 1801, in the law organizing the State 

 agricultural college, an authorization was given for the disseminating of agri- 

 cultural education by means of university extension methods. The agricul- 

 tural college was authorized to institute a winter course of lectures for others 

 than the students of the institution, under certain rules and regulations. The 

 State agricultural college movement began with the organization of the Mich- 

 igan Agricultural College under act of the legislature of 18(U. Under this 

 act was organized the first State agricultural college in the United States. 

 It will thus be seen that the farmers' institute movement and the organization 

 of agricultural colleges took place at about the same time. The Morrill Act, 

 under which there has been organized an agricultural college in each State, 

 was passed by Congress in 1802. The real foundation for the widespread 

 farmers' institute movement and for the organization of agricultural colleges 

 under Federal aid lay in the fact that a need was felt for the practice of better 

 methods of agriculture. The instructors in the early days in farmers' insti- 

 tutes and in agricultural colleges found their work quite different from that 

 of the instructors of to-day. It was then that the professor of agriculture 

 was expected to teach all of the branches in the college which related to 

 agriculture, soils, farm crops, stock feeding and breeding, and the farmers' 

 institute lecturer was expected to be a specialist in all that related to farming. 



After the agricultural college movement was well under way and colleges 

 were organized inider the land-grant act, the most noticeable difiiculty was in 

 providing instructors who had definite information with reference to the sub- 

 jects they were expected to teach. To be sure, their knowledge was a i»rac- 

 tical kind, and it had largely been obtained through actual management of the 

 soil itself and through handling the various crops and animals found on the 

 farm. While the knowledge which they jiossessed was the most important 

 kind, yet they were compelled to draw largely upon their own limited expe- 

 rience for their facts, and it soon became evident that the greatest drawliack 



