56 



The farmer has little temptation and little need to engage in the specula- 

 tive or disreputal)le. For him the soil is on tap. What he gets diminishes no 

 man's fortune. By the help of God and the experiment station he is the 

 creator of wealth. But he needs the college, too. 



And the college needs him, and both need the experiment station. The vital 

 relations of the theoretical and the practical, of the educative and the pro- 

 ductive, are being understood as never before. The educators and all the 

 people are beginning to believe what Doctor Baldwin, of Yale, said some time 

 ago, that " the chief end of life is not to get an education, Init to use an 

 education ; "' that the purpose of all education should lie increa.sed efficiency in 

 doing something that needs to be done. 



Says James Freeman Clarke : " Theory without pi'actice to test it, to verify 

 it, to correct it, is idle speculation ; but practice without theory to animate it is 

 mere mechanism. In every art and in every luisincss theory is the soul and jirac- 

 tice is the body. All success depends on practice, but all improvement on theory. 

 Let neither despise the othei'." 



The agricultural college, with its coworkers in the educational field, is the 

 soul of twentieth century agriculture. The experiment station, with its 

 coworkers on the farms, is the body. Neither can do without tlie otlier. The 

 institute should become one of the connecting links lietween them ; one of the 

 forces to keep soul and body together. The soul without a body, in the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil, is as useless as a body without a soul. 



The institute as it exists to-day is the child of the experiment station. Let 

 it be nourished and fostered until it shall l)ecome the parent of higher agricul- 

 tural education for the masses; until all the i)eople shall more clearly under- 

 stand the relation of theory to practice, and shall more fully appreciate the 

 measureless opportunities and the " marvelous attractions of rural and indu.s- 

 trial life." 



Discussion. 



C. M. Conner, of Florida, stated that the relation of the agricultural college 

 to the institute worker is somewhat the position of the teacher with refer- 

 ence to his pupils, since men are nothing more than boys grown up, and since 

 the agricultural college teaches the workers. lie thought that the agricultural 

 college could assist the farmers" institutes by encouraging boys during their 

 college course to prepare themselves for institute work. 



ADVERTISING FARMERS' INSTITUTE MEETINGS. 



Mr. Kaufman. Advertising the farmers' institute meetings is one of the most 

 important things in connection with a successful series of farmers" institutes. 

 At least such has been my experience in the brief period institutes have been 

 held in North Dakota. This is especially true where the amount of funds at 

 your disposal is limited, and you find it impossible to have what might proj)- 

 erly be called an " advance agent " for the institutes. 



At the time of taking hold of the work in North Dakota I had never attended 

 more than one-half dozen farmers' institutes and, knowing absolutely nothing 

 as to how they had been advertised, a system of properly advertising had to 

 be worked out to suit our conditions. In treating this subject it is not my 

 intention to offer many suggestions as to how an institute meeting should be 

 advertised, but to state how this work has been carried on in North Dakota, 

 hoping thereby to bring out the experience of others along this line. 



