NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 133 
cultural extension work by the Iowa State College of Agriculture and 
Mechanics Arts and providing an appropriation therefor. The next, or 
Thirty-second, general assembly showed their confidence and apprecia- 
tion in the importance of this work by making the appropriation annual 
and increasing the amount thereof. As a result of this college ex- 
tension work there has been organized throughout the state in various 
counties a number of "short courses" for instruction in agriculture, 
dairying, stock judging, domestic science, etc. 
The American Association of Farmers' Institute Workers are directing 
their efforts for the establishment of "movable schools of agriculture." 
The statement of the committee in making its report gives in a very 
concise manner the object of these schools in the following words: 
"The institutes, at least in the United States where they have been 
longest conducted, have brought the majority of the country people to 
appreciate the value of the truths that agricultural science has to 
teach. The next duty, therefore, is to demonstrate the practicability of 
imparting these truths with sufficient particularity, adaption and ex- 
tent to be of substantial benefit to the working farmer in increasing his 
earing power. 
The movable school promises to provide such a demonstration. It 
deals with a single item or subject in agriculture, and it deals with it 
both in a theoretical and in a practical way. It explains the theory 
and then teaches by doing. * * * * 
The movable school is first of all a carefully prepared course of study 
extending over sufficient time to teach the subject thoroughly and render 
the student familiar with the practice work which the course prescribes. 
It is given to classes regularly organized and limited in number, whose 
members agree to complete the course. It is equipped with all the ap- 
paratus, books, and material needed for presenting the subject in a most 
thorough manner, and is conducted by a teacher who is an expert in 
expounding and illustrating the theory of the subject and in directing 
the practical features of the study. The students are men and women 
of mature years, and of experience in the direction in which the in- 
struction is to be given, having sufficient preliminary education to en- 
able them to understand and participate intelligently in the requirements 
of the course." 
The form of organization for movable schools of agriculture is set 
forth in circular No. 79 from the U. S. Office of Experiment Stations, 
issued under date of October 24, 1908, 
INSTITUTES. 
Farmers' institutes were held in eighty-three of the ninety-nine coun- 
ties of the state during the last fiscal year, an increase of five over the 
previous period. It is known that in two counties reporting no insti- 
tute, short courses were held, thus increasing the number to eighty-five, 
leaving only fourteen counties in which neither institutes or short 
courses were held. 
Fifty-nine hundred and fifty-five dollars was paid out through the 
state auditor's office to the institutes in the last period, an increase of four 
