December 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



837 



cedents to guide us we shall probably make mistakes, 

 but we shall all do our best. It will always be a 

 pleasant memory that we have participated in a pio- 

 neer movement. 



" Tlie day exercises will aim at specific instructioii 

 in particular subjects. The evening exercises will be 

 popular illustrated lectures. 



" Everyone is invited to attend the various exer- 

 cises. Persons have the privilege of enrolling them- 

 selves as students for the purpose of receiving per- 

 sonal aid upon the points under discussion. At the 

 close of each day's exercise the students will be 

 questioned upon the subjects. This questioning is 

 not pursued for the purpose of ascertaining the stir- 

 dent's knowledge of the exercise, but to elucidate 

 the subject under discussion. During this exercise, 

 also, the student has the privilege of freely asking 

 questions upon the topic under consideration. It is 

 expected that the instructors will not be interrupted 

 with questions during the course of the exercise. 



"Each day session will be opened with a lesson 

 upon observation. Students will be given specimens, 

 as indicated in the program, and ten minutes will be 

 allowed for examination of them. Tlie students will 

 then be questioned as to what they have seen. 



"Students should provide themselves with note- 

 book and pencil. 



"Roll will be called immediately upon the hour 

 set for meeting. 



"Printed synopses of all the day lectures will be 

 distributed to students. 



"While most of the instruction deals with funda- 

 mental principles, special applications will be made 

 to the grape whenever possible. ' ' 



About a dozen of these schools, of longer 

 or shorter duration, have now been held. 

 They always awaken a widespread influ- 

 ence. Frequently the residents of the vil- 

 lage or city attend them in the interest of 

 nature study. In Jamestown, a city of 

 20,000 people, the high school was dismissed 

 upon one occasion to enable the teachers to 

 attend an observation upon flowers. It is 

 certain that these schools accomplish more 

 direct good for the farming interests by 

 means of this type of teaching than they 

 could by simply specifying a set of rules 

 which the farmer shall follow, or by giving 

 up the time to so-called practical informa- 

 tion. This teaching not only awakens the 

 farmer himself, but it also interests all 



other citizens in his work. All this was 

 never better illustrated than in a session at 

 the Jamestown school devoted to insects. 

 If one is to talk to a rural audience about 

 insects it is presumed, of course, that he 

 will devote himself to methods of destroy- 

 ing them. Not so here, however. Insects 

 were passed around for observation, and 

 papier maehe models were in the hands of 

 the instructor. The teacher soon had the 

 audience interested in the insect itself. 

 The students looked through the bug's 

 eyes, heard as it heard, felt as it felt, and 

 thereby came into sympathy with living 

 things. For nearly two hours over one 

 hundred people listened to this exposition 

 in rapt attention, and it is safe to say that 

 every student went away in a wholly new 

 frame of mind respecting the objects which 

 he had always been taught to dread. 



EXPERIMENT OR RESEARCH WORK. 



Aside from all this extension teaching, 

 the experiment station publications must 

 not be overlooked. Each State and Terri- 

 tory is in recent years issuing these period- 

 ical bulletins of instruction and informa- 

 tion, and the effect is even now seen in the 

 beginnings of an uplift in the agricultural 

 population of which the outcome, at the 

 end of the present generation, will be mo- 

 mentous and stupendous. Probably no 

 government has ever inaugurated a move- 

 ment which reflects more wisdom and states- 

 manship upon its promoters than this ex- 

 periment station enterprise of the United 

 States. It probes the very essence of na- 

 tional prosperity and lays a foundation of 

 intelligence and inspiration which all the 

 convulsions of time cannot overturn. 



At Cornell the experiment station work 

 has attempted to consider fundamental 

 subjects, or those of abiding interest, rather 

 than those of mere transient or local im- 

 portance. Our horticultural inquiries have 

 lain along three lines : the study of the 



