EDITORIAL. 609 



session of the conference for education in the South, and were in 

 close cooperation with the Southern Educational Association, while 

 the running expenses were defrayed by the Southern Education 

 Board. The announced purpose of the gathering was not primarily 

 pedagogic, as might have been expected, but to devise ways and 

 means for all who are interested to organize and build up country 

 life in the South. Its scope included conferences for farmers, busi- 

 ness men, country women, boys and girls, ministers, physicians, and 

 editors, as well as school workers, on special phases of the problem, 

 together with general sessions in which all the groups met together 

 for the consideration of the manifold matters which were found to 

 be of common interest. 



The conferences were noteworth}?- for emphasis placed upon the 

 demonstration method and the use of illustrative material. Formal 

 organizations for cooperative stock breeding and selling and the 

 marketing of farm products and boys' and girls' clubs were effected 

 from among those present, and programs carried out to show their 

 practical workings. There was a government parcel post exhibit with 

 experts from this Department to give advice as to the possibilities of 

 this new service, the proper packing of goods, and ways and means 

 to realize its full possibilities. The Kentucky State University had 

 on exhibition a model home, equipped with modern conveniences, and 

 offered lectures and demonstrations on home economics and rural 

 sanitation. There was also a country school of modern type, a coop- 

 erative creamery, a model poultry plant, and a wealth of similar illus- 

 trative material. 



None the less, perhaps the most valuable demonstration of all was 

 that of the spirit of cooperation and good will toward agriculture, 

 and the acknowledgment of its predominating importance in national 

 life, manifested by the various and seemingly diverse agencies which 

 shared the labors of the conferences and participated in their bene- 

 fits. In their conception and development, the Louisville meetings 

 reflected in no small degree the spirit of the times, and go far to 

 explain why state and national governments are undertaking a great, 

 permanent sj^stem of agricultural extension work. 



