AGRICULTURAL TRAINING FOR EMPLOYED TEACHERS. 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 during 
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 the}^ 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being gradually superseded either by brief inspirational teachers' 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. 
Brieker, 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 
