26 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



order to show how influential institutes such as you have in in is State 

 can be if properly directed and under central control. 



Some of us were very much interested in the improvement of the 

 rural schools in our State. We felt that the country schools were not 

 much better than they had been forty or fifty years ago, whilst on the 

 other hand the city and town schools had greatly improved. The towns 

 had commodious buildings, excellent teachers, and all of the appliances nec- 

 essary for giving children a good modern education. Out in the country it 

 was the same old cross-road schoolhouse; one teacher; sometimes many 

 scholars; in other instances, very few. The curriculum of studies was 

 not materially changed from that of half a century ago. There prac- 

 tically had been no improvement in that respect, although country life 

 had wholly different problems to meet, and country children were envir- 

 oned by altogether different social surroundings. The first thing we did 

 to bring about a change of public sentiment on the subject of rural school 

 improvement was to require that an evening session in every farmers' 

 institute held in the State should be given up to the consideration of the 

 education of the farmer and his children, so that in every one of the two 

 or three hundred institutes that were held that year, that subject was 

 discussed. The State was districted and institute lecturers were sent 

 out by State authority into each district. With each one of these insti- 

 tute forces there was at least one man who was especially qualified to 

 give instruction along the line of the education of country children. We 

 went to a great deal of trouble and some expense to advertise the meet- 

 ings that were to be held for the improvement of the rural schools. We 

 sent out circulars, programs, and personal letters to the school teachers, 

 also packages containing small advertisements, to be given to the chil- 

 dren, calling attention to the fact that the subject of the education of 

 iniral people was to be taken up and discussed by prominent educators 

 upon a given evening. The school children were invited; county super- 

 intendents, the school directors, and all who were interested in education 

 were asked to come. The result was that we would have meetings, 

 packed with people interested in this subject, and perhaps there would be 

 three or four front seats across the schoolhouse filled with little chil- 

 dren, who had come to hear this diS'Cussion of their education. The 

 lecturer would take some natural object, as for instance, a peach limb. 

 He would tell the children how the buds were arranged; how the sap 

 circulates; what the leaf is to do; how the starch is transferred; the dif- 

 ference between the leaf buds, and the flower buds; how the fruit i^ 

 formed, continuing hisi explanations for perhaps thirty or forty minutes. 

 The lecturers were experts in the subjects that they presented; laiew 

 how to make their story interesting, and there would not be a .sleepy eye 

 in the entire audience, the smallest child thoroughly understanding and 

 enjoying what these men. were teaching. The result was that after the 

 lecture men would get up in the audience and say. "Why cant we have 

 this kind of instruction in our public schools?" 



The campaign of education by means of the farmers' institutes was 

 conducted for five years throughout Pennsylvania until the most of the 

 people of the State had been reached. Country people began to see that 



