100 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



success of Iowa agriculture. In response to special inquiries, the college 

 and station officers write over 60,000 personal letters annually pertaining 

 to agricultural conditions and problems. 



The college entertains not less than 2.5,000 visitors annually, who come 

 on excursions or otherwise, because of interest in the work of the insti- 

 tution. The follege students and products have come in competition and 

 won notable victories. The college is training young men to higher 

 ideals and higher achievements in successful farming and good citizen- 

 ship. 



Notwithstanding all that is being done, however, the field is only par- 

 tially covered. There is a demand for much more. A recent investigation 

 reveals the rather startling fact that correspondence schools located in 

 other States have over 30,000 pupils enrolled in Iowa. There is a demand 

 for correspondence instruction conducted by Iowa institutions. There is 

 a demand for a sympathetic, well organized farmers' reading course. 



The great mass of the farm boys and girls of Iowa are barred from 

 entering college by the deficiencies of the rural school. The city high 

 school does not satisfactorily connect the rural school with the college. 

 There is a constantly growing demand for a better system. The agri- 

 cultural high school may partially meet this requirement, though its chief 

 function will doubtless be to give agricultural instruction of practical 

 character, on a less extensive scale than the colleges. Agricultural high 

 schools have been organized in eight or ten States, and they are growing 

 in favor. The Georgia legislature has just passed an act providing for 

 an agricultural high school in each congressional district of the State. 

 The rural and city school-teachers of the State, to do their work most 

 eflBciently, should have help from the college in introducing agriculture 

 in their classes. A summer school should be held for this purpose. 



To meet the demands of the farmers' institutes, short courses, fairs, 

 county farms and other organizations looking to the college for help, the 

 agricultural extension force should be fully twice its present size. 



The rural schools are in need of bulletins and literature that will 

 interest the boys and girls in nature study and in plants and animals 

 and the things about them on the farm. 



A modern college of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts must do more than 

 give instruction to resident students. It must identify itself with all 

 phases of educational work pertaining to the industries it represents. 

 To be in position to render the greatest service to the industrial interests 

 of the State it must be identified with the activities of the people from 

 the rural schools up through the colleges and to the practical affairs of 

 their daily work. It is this larger service in its broadest sense that the 

 people of Iowa expect of their State College of Agriculture and Mechanic 

 Arts, and this is the service which the institution is endeavoring to 

 render. 



