186 BACKGROUND AND MEANS OF SERVICE 



of "farm demonstrators," "farm advisers" or "county 

 agents" on a county unity basis, placing them under the 

 supervision and direction of the state agricultural college. 

 Both these functions then, agricultural development and 

 extension of agricultural education, have from the first 

 been the ideals of most of the states as to what the county 

 agent's work should be. Incorporated in most of the state 

 legislation on the subject, in one form or another, they 

 have also come to be quite generally accepted as ideals, both 

 by the public and by the profession. 



THE COUNTY AGENT AS A TEACHER 



That the good county agent should be a teacher of better 

 agriculture a more profitable farming and a more satisfy- 

 ing country life almost goes without saying ; but it is much 

 more easily stated as a theory than practiced as a fact. His 

 school house, if not "the world," still embraces from two 

 hundred to two thousand square miles, and his pupils from 

 5,000 to 50,000 in number are adult men and women, to- 

 gether with children of advanced school age and above, with 

 ideals, habits and customs already well established. He 

 has little or no control over his pupils he cannot compel 

 them even to listen to his teaching, much less to accept and 

 practice it. He must depend on drawing his pupils to him 

 by giving his instruction in as interesting and useful form 

 as possible, and by showing them through such demonstra- 

 tions "that he who runs" will be persuaded to read and to 

 accept. It is not an easy task. Not only do practical ex- 

 perience and good technical college training count heavily, 

 but also personality and the qualities of good leadership 

 enter very largely into such teaching. It is, necessarily, 

 done under all sorts of conditions and in widely scattered 

 places, in barns and fields, in school houses and in grange 



