THE FARM DEMONSTRATION WORK 



institute work, as the bulletin and lecture has its place in the ex- 

 tension field, but the best thought of the country had concluded 

 that the characteristic attitude of the farmer is such as to make the 

 development of some other system of reaching him with the best 

 practice of agriculture a pressing necessity. 



The farmer is naturally conservative, and to an extent skep- 

 tical of new methods. His habits of thought and methods of pro- 

 cedure are well settled upon him, and he is slow to change either 

 unless convinced beyond any doubt of the wisdom of doing so. 



To him experimentation with new methods seems to be, and is, 

 in the nature of a gamble and the farmer cannot afford to gamble. 

 He may read the bulletin and hear the lecture, but unless he is 

 shown that the method proposed for handling his business, shown 

 under his own conditions, is better, he will not accept it as against 

 his own, which has provided a living at least for himself and family. 

 It is not sufficient to tell the farmer that his method is not the best. 

 He must be shown the best methods. The appeal must be made 

 through his eye. He will quickly accept new principles and prac- 

 tices if their value is demonstrated to him under the environment in 

 which he lives, and the system of itinerant teaching, which Sir. 

 Horace Plunkett says, 'has stood the test better than any other,' is 

 predicated upon the idea of the willingness upon the part of the 

 farmer to adopt those methods which have been proven to him 

 personally to be most effective in his business. 



The fundamental idea of the system of demonstration or itin- 

 erant teaching, presupposes the personal contact of the teacher with 

 the person being taught, the participation of the pupil in the actual 

 demonstration of the lesson being taught, and the success of the 

 method proposed. It is a system which frees the pupil from the 

 slavishness of the textbooks, which makes the field, the garden, the 

 orchard and even the parlor and kitchen classrooms. It teaches us 

 to 'learn to do by doing.' As President Wilson said: 'It constitutes 

 the kind of work which it seems to me is the only kind that generates 

 real education; that is to say, the demonstration process and the 

 personal touch with the man who does the demonstrating. ' ' ' 



[39] 



