FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Ill 



that preparation is necessary in order to maintain their positions. There 

 is an excellent opportunity just now for this college and such organiza- 

 tions as are represented here — the farmers' clubs, the dairy organiza- 

 tions, the livestock organizations, the granges — to promote this move- 

 ment by insisting upon the introduction of agriculture into the course 

 of study in the ten teachers', training schools provided for by the last 

 session of the legislature. But some of you say, ''Why prepare teachers 



DECORATED SCHOOL GROUNDS. 



for such work? We cannot teach agriculture in the common schools.'* 

 The same thing was said forty years ago — yes, twenty, fifteen years ago 

 — of agriculture in the colleges, but now everybody admits that the teach- 

 ing of agriculture in the colleges is a success. There is a better chance for 

 the successful teaching of agriculture in the common school to-day then 

 there was in the colleges twenty years ago — a better corps of available 

 teachers, better text-books and a less skeptical rural population. If the 

 farmers of this country believe in their vocation and have sufficient faith 

 in their colleges to cooperate in the organization of an active propaganda 

 for the introduction of agriculture into the public schools, there is no 

 reason why w€ may not hope to see, within a very few years, sufficient 

 agricultural instruction in the common schools and the rural high schools 

 to prepare the great mass of our rural population for a better under- 

 standing of agricultural literature and a more intelligent practice of 

 farminsr. 



