﻿AGEICULTUBAL TRAINING FOE EMPLOVKI) TKACHERS. 7 



for graduate students in a term lasting from February to November, 

 provision being made, however, for students to work during the 

 summer only, if desired. A bachelor's degree is required for admis- 

 sion to this work. Columbia University offers to employed teachers 

 the advantages of afternoon, evening, and Saturday classes dining 

 the regular school year, and agriculture is one of the subjects thus 

 taught. Afternoon and Saturday classes in agriculture for teachers 

 are also offered in the Fresno State Normal School, Fresno, Cal. 



Agriculture has come in recent years to hold a prominent place on 

 the programs of teachers' institutes. However, these institutes are 

 generally in session only one or two weeks at the most, hence the 

 instruction given there must necessarily be more or less cursory and 

 superficial. Nevertheless, these institutes have doubtless been of 

 much influence in arousing the interest of teachers in the subject of 

 agriculture and in the inspiration they have given to teachers to 

 become better prepared. The plans on which institutes are held 

 vary greatly in the different States, and in many States they are 

 being gradually superseded either by brief inspirational teachers' 

 meetings on the one hand, or on the other hand by summer normals, 

 in which the teachers of a number of counties meet together at some 

 central location, often at some college or other institution in con- 

 nection with the ordinary summer school. This plan is followed 

 for example, in Virginia and in South Dakota. At Aberdeen, S. Dak., 

 10 counties will hold their joint institute a period of one week in 

 connection with the summer school of the Northern Normal and 

 Industrial School. A very promising plan, devised by Garland A. 

 Bricker, of the Ohio State University, has been successfully put into 

 operation by him in Ohio. This plan is to organize and conduct 

 special extension schools for teachers in various counties in the 

 State, these schools being in charge of instructors furnished by the 

 extension staff of the State agricultural college. The funds neces- 

 sary to carry on these extension schools are, according to a ruling of 

 the Attorney General of the United States, available to the land- 

 grant colleges under a proviso of the Nelson Amendment (34 Stat. L., 

 1256, 1281), approved March 4, 1907, by which a portion of the 

 funds appropriated by this act from the Federal Treasury for the 

 use of these colleges may -be used "for providing courses for the 

 special preparation of instructors for teaching the elements of agri- 

 culture and the mechanic arts." 



Prof. Bricker's plan is to organize a teachers' extension school in 

 cooperation with the local school authorities whenever a sufficient 

 number of teachers in one locality have signified their desire to 

 enroll and take the course, on much the same plan as that followed 

 by many agricultural colleges in conducting farmers' short courses. 

 To cover local expenses a small fee is charged each teacher who 



