FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 3l 



others, almost vvithoiii, exception, were men who had special opportunities 

 for knowing about the particular things that they were sent to teach. 



You can see the great influence this corps of teachers is going to 

 have on the agriculture of this country — nine hundred skilled instructors 

 teaching in farmers' institutes, embracing over four thousand days, 

 which would equal a course of study continuing for twenty-seven school 

 years of one hundred and eighty days each. The institute is coming to 

 be the great educational go-between, between the colleges and experi- 

 ment stations on the one hand, and the practical farmer, who needs in- 

 formation, on the other. The great teaching force that is to take tmths 

 relating to agriculture as fast as they are discovered, and bring them 

 out to every hamlet where men are engaged in farming, and show how 

 they can be advantageously applied. 



For the institute to do this work most effectively it will be necessary 

 for the system to be so organized that there may be united effort in every 

 State and by all of the States, guided by intelligent direction, the entire 

 force concentrating for the accomplishment of the results that the farm- 

 ers' institutes were intended to secure, the dissemination of agricultural 

 information to the people of the United States. 



A Member: Where are you going- to get these men, these 

 teachers ? 



Mr. Hamii^tox : We have got to raise some of them. The 

 method we pursued is this, and I beheve it is a good method. 

 We \vent to our Agricultural College and Experiment Station 

 and got some men there. Then we had our institute managers 

 in the various counties make reports with regard to men they 

 thought were specially well equipped in some line of agriculture. 

 Then we have our institute lecturers look out for men that seem 

 to have an ability to present things clearly and intelligently. 

 Then the next year we took some of these man and put them 

 on the State force, so that they would have a chance to develop. 

 We send them around, give them an engagement of perhaps 

 two weeks and watch them and see how they get along. You 

 can not take a man, and if he breaks down one day, reject him 

 on account of that; give him two weeks, and then, if he looks 

 as though he had in him the making of an institute teacher, then 

 keep him ; and so you add to your force year by year. 



A Mk^nibER: And you can't employ them only about three 

 months in the year. 



Mr. Hamilton: That is true; it usually is about three 

 months. 



