THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



greater significance and influence, because when they began 

 to formulate their program of work they encountered more 

 technicalities and difficulties of detail. Furthermore, the man 

 who had thought out the demonstration work was no longer 

 with them. They had to study his philosophy and trust their 

 combined judgment in the development of it. They gave 

 individuality, character and power to their program, how- 

 ever, and the effects have spread to other parts of ,this 

 country and are destined to spread throughout the world. 

 Joint meetings of different kinds of agents from all over the 

 United States were held soon after the idea began to be 

 generally adopted. Such meetings have been held at Wash- 

 ington, St. Louis, Chicago and elsewhere. The whole ten- 

 dency of such meetings is towards mutual encouragement 

 and general intelligence. 



A very significant meeting was held at Gulfport, Missis- 

 sippi, in the fall of 1919. It consisted of directors, state 

 agents, club agents, district agents and specialists from all 

 the Southern States. It was a culmination organization 

 meeting of all the demonstration forces who had united to 

 review their achievements during the period of the work and 

 to take stock and make plans for the reconstruction period. 



While the best teaching is done face to face, yet the agents 

 must use the printed page. The early demonstration circu- 

 lar of instruction was a short one. It never consisted of 

 more than eight pages. Sometimes it had not more than two. 

 As a rule at that time the other Department bulletins varied 

 from 40 to 60 pages. One of the main advantages of the short 

 circular was that it discussed just one thing, — that happened to 

 be the thing which all the agents were impressing at that 

 time. For instance, the circular on the ''Selection of Seed 

 Corn" did not give a whole history of the corn plant or corn 



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