196 BACKGROUND AND MEANS OF SERVICE 



THE EXTENSION FUNCTION 



Legislative acceptance of "extension/ 5 as it relates to 

 agriculture as a public obligation, marks a new and im- 

 portant step in public policy. When adequate state and 

 federal provision had been made for the support of agri- 

 cultural colleges, it was still necessary for persons who 

 desired to take advantage of it to come to the colleges and 

 live there at their own expense in order to receive the in- 

 struction. This, naturally and in itself, limited the number 

 of those who could take advantage of the instruction pro- 

 vided. In accepting agricultural extension as a public 

 function, the state and federal governments have under- 

 taken to make scientific and practical agricultural and 

 home making instruction and information available "to all 

 the people in the localities where they reside." This marks 

 a great step forward in public education and is a necessary 

 corollary with experiment station research and agricultural 

 college teaching and extends their usefulness. The county 

 agent plays a vital part in this plan. 



Extension work is not entirely of recent origin. Farm- 

 ers' institutes were an early and important method of ex- 

 tension teaching. These were begun in Illinois, Iowa and 

 New Hampshire as early as 1869 or 1870, in Michigan in 

 1875, in Massachusetts in 1878, in New York in 1887, and 

 in most of the other states about the same time or soon 

 after. The farmers' institutes were pioneer institutions in 

 agricultural extension teaching and did much to prepare 

 the way for our present agricultural colleges and schools 

 and especially for the extension system and the county 

 agent. 



With the growth of the agricultural colleges under the 

 Morrill Act, considerable staffs of teachers, though few in 

 number at first, were gradually accumulated. In addition 



