560 APPENDIX. 



attractive and clear as to at once excite interest and carry conviction. I do 

 not know, in history, of any other such success in popularizing the best form 

 of educational work. 



In addition to this work carried on directly with the common schools, a 

 farmers' reading course was established, on the " Chautauqua plan," which, in 

 1898, had a membership of four thousand eight hundred, and was rapidly 

 increasing. This course occupies four winters, and leads to a certificate to all 

 who complete the course and pass the examinations. In this way real univer- 

 sity education is brought to the very doors of the farmers. An interesting 

 feature of the Cornell work is the organization of children of rural districts into 

 ' ' Cornell Junior Nationalists' Clubs, ' ' for the purpose of promoting systematic 

 study of natural objects. 



While Cornell University, as the leader in this work, is entitled to the 

 recognition here given, it must not be supposed that it is any longer alone 

 in it. Its great success has stirred the whole country, and universities and 

 normal schools everywhere are every day putting more stress not only upon 

 nature study, but upon its importance as a foundation for successful work on 

 the farm. The facts here given are intended as a stimulus to such farmers as 

 may see them, to lead them to appreciate the economic value of the work, and 

 aid the authorities of their own states in establishing it among themselves, or 

 to demand it, as the farmers of Western New York did, if the authorities are 

 not acting. 



III. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



Space permits only such reference to agriculture in foreign countries as may 

 serve to disabuse any minds of the impression that systematic instruction in 

 agriculture is a new thing, or peculiar to the United States. Although we are 

 now doing more in this direction tban any other country, we were by no means 

 the earliest in the field. Agricultural instruction in schools of all grades dates 

 back, in several countries of Europe, to the early part of the nineteenth 

 century, and perhaps longer. On the continent of Europe there is perhaps no 

 country in which provision is not made for agricultural instruction wholly, or 

 more usually partly, at public expense, and in many it begins in the public 

 schools. Information on this point may be had by those interested in the later 

 reports of the United States Commission of Education, nearly all of which 

 have more or less reference to the subject. These reports can be found in any 

 considerable public library. In this, as in other respects, each country de^ elops 

 according to its necessities and the character of its people. The principles 

 involved must be the same everywhere, but the methods both of procedure and 

 administration will differ. For Americans, up to the present time, the best 

 example is unquestionably that of the state of New York, and naturally so 

 since it is our richest state, and can spend most money in this direction. Not 

 all our states can yet do what New York is doing, but a somewhat careful 

 study of whatever I have been able to find as to agricultural instruction abroad 

 suggests nothing of value for imitation which will not be found in the work of 

 New York and all other states which are following her lead. 



