TEACHING THE CULTIVATORS 61 



receiving questioners and applications in their own offices — in the 

 same way that as the agronomes of Belgium — on at least one fixed 

 day every week, at such men's pleasure, also delivering lectures, 

 distributing printed matter, attending meetings, promoting the 

 formation of co-operative societies, of boys' and girls' clubs, laying 

 out demonstration plots, directing farmers in the laying out of such 

 for themselves on their own farms of the size of from one to ten 

 acres, and in other similar ways.* To be able to serve such pur- 

 pose it was indispensable that they should not only be thoroughly 

 well equipped with the necessary apparatus, for which adequate 

 provision was made, but also that they should be able, competent 

 men, found on examination to be equal to their charge, more speci- 

 fically practical, and, above all things, adaptable and possessed of 

 the gift of delivering agricultural instruction in a popular, readily 

 intelligible, and interesting manner, divesting their teaching of the 

 dryness and abstractness recalling the school pulpit. 



" These agents," so writes Miss Helen Johnson Keyes in an 

 article contributed to the North America Review, " go into the 

 communities and there, on the farmers' acres, and in the houses, 

 clubs, granges, schools, churches, demonstrate the results of experi- 

 ments which have been carried on in the experimental stations, 



* The following is the standing instruction in respect of such agents' 

 action : — 



1. To demonstrate established agricultural facts that are of value to 

 the community, but not yet generally practised. 



2. To make available to the people of the county the results of 

 agricultural experiments, and to assist in determining the application 

 of these principles to local conditions. 



3. To search for the hest there is in the farm practice of good farmers 

 in the county, and to give the widest possible publicity to their work. 



4. To study farming in all its relations, and to assist in the estab- 

 lishment of a system of farm management that is most profitable and 

 consistent with a permanent agriculture. 



5. To be interested in and render such assistance as is consistent 

 with his described duties to all work undertaken in the county for the 

 improvement of farming or the advancement of rural life. 



6. To develop and inspire local leadership and inculcate high com- 

 munity ideals, to stimulate co-operation, and help the rural people in 

 their organised capacity through the farm bureau and all other local 

 associations, to make farming an attractive business and country life 

 satisfying to man, woman and child. 



An official bulletin adds the following admonition : As a teacher he 

 teaches by demonstration rather than by books, by object lessons rather 

 than by lectures. Not only does he see that his demonstrations demon- 

 strate, but he capitalises all the teaching forces in the county in giving 

 the results of the tests or demonstrations the widest possible publicity. 

 In carrying out his demonstrations he works with individuals, but the 

 benefit to the individual worked with is to reach the community, 

 through his demonstrations, and so benefit all. 



