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the future. He has taken the methods iu use in the different States for the past 

 year or two, and has deduced from them wliat he believes to be the best method of 

 institute or<jani/,ation. He gives not only the constitution for tlie State, township, 

 and district societies, but it also gives a law that might be enacted in estalilishing an 

 institute distrii't. 1 would say that to a very large extent the ideas would meet with 

 my approval, and they would wf)rk, I think, in most of the States. 



Professor Hamilton advocates first a central supervision, and combines with that 

 the local organizations for the county, township, and distnci, and he recommends 

 work along these lines to secure stability and perpetuity of the work. You can see 

 the importance of the organization for this purpose. The whole scheme is prepared 

 with the idea of securing the cooperation of the agricultural colleges and experiment 

 stations, and I know that in States where they have quite close connei-tion between 

 the colleges and institute work it gives them good results. He reconunends making 

 this a State institution, in order, in the first place, to have appropriations from the 

 State, and to i)rovide for development of the institute system. This scheme as pre- 

 pared here gives us the outline for a system, and he provides for a central board of 

 control with a director as executive officer; and this governing board, as he recom- 

 mends, will consist, first, of the president of the board of regents of the university or 

 agricultural college — whatever your board is of — and next the dean of the agricul- 

 tural college or the president of the agricultural college, the director of experiment 

 stations, the superintendent of public instruction, and also four delegates selected 

 from the county institute society. The.se directors of institutes would serve without 

 pay, but w^ould have their expenses from the State. 



He farther ])rovides for the payment of $100, or of a sum to be fixed, of course, from 

 the county treasury, to pay the local expenses of the institutes — increasing, of course, 

 in proportion to the funds. 



The secretary of the State l)oard of directors would servi' for three years. It also 

 l)rovides for the printing and sending out of the reports of the institutes. As arranged 

 in this scheme, the board of directors would fix the dates for the meetings, review 

 the progranmies, and arrange for the speakers. It would also provide for institutes 

 for women, for traveling libraries and reading clubs, and would defray the expenses, 

 except the local expenses. It arranges for an appropriation by the State. The scheme 

 goes on to provide a constitution and by-laws, as I said, for the county, township, and 

 the district, for such societies. 



I have thus very briefly outlined what the system is. 



It seems to me that it is very desirable that we have something in the way of county 

 organizations, and that we should have in all States a State organization for carrying 

 on the work. Whether we should attempt to modify our present systems and have 

 the board of directors of the States selected according to this plan, or whether we 

 should keep up our present methods, would perhaps be a problem for each to solve 

 for himself. In our own State, although we do not have a State board of directors, 

 it follows along about the same lines as set forth in this plan. Our l^oard of agricul- 

 ture in Michigan is really the board of trustees of the agricultural college, and the 

 president of the college is a member of that board; so that we follow very closely this 

 plan except that we do not provide for the four delegates from the county institute 

 societies. 



It seems to me in many respects this is an admirable idea to bring the institutes 

 closer to the farmers, and to make them feel even more than we can now that these 

 are farmers' institutes. Without taking further tmie I want to recommend this 

 report as a part of the proceedings of this meeting. 



E. E. Kaufman, of North Dakota, presented the following paper on the same 

 subject: 



Every State institute director has the problem of methods and organization to deal 

 with, and we find nearly as many different plans followed as we have States. 



