32 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT IN FLORIDA. 
We are vitally interested today in 
knowing what factors are at work for the 
improvement of Florida conditions. We 
must improve our conditions, or be left 
far behind in this world-wide movement. 
If our methods of handling our citrus 
groves are not better next year than they 
are this year, we will find ourselves hope¬ 
lessly outclassed by this severe and se¬ 
rious competition. In our democratic 
form of government, we cannot expect 
a dictator to arise and drive us forward 
to proper handling and to proper thinking. 
The upward movement must be through 
the upward movement of at least a large 
proportion of the agricultural people. Our 
leaders may legislate and prescribe laws 
for our guidance, but unless these laws 
receive an intelligent support, they will be 
practically dead letters on the statute 
books. This may be strikingly illustrated 
by the laws on our statute books pertain¬ 
ing to the organization of a county hor¬ 
ticultural commission. These commis¬ 
sions when properly organized have all 
the power necessary to carry out any rea¬ 
sonable line of work in any county. Yet 
so far as we know, not a single county 
has taken effective advantage of this law. 
AGRICULTURE IN RURAL SCHOOLS. 
Some lines of work are being carried 
out which will in time give us much bet¬ 
ter agricultural and horticultural condi¬ 
tions in the State. One of these move¬ 
ments is the teaching of the basic princi¬ 
ples of agriculture and horticulture in all 
the rural schools of the State. Naturally, 
the introduction of agriculture has met 
with the same opposition that the intro¬ 
duction of grammar and physiology met 
with in our common school curriculum. 
It is no more likely that the teaching of 
agriculture from an elementary text-book 
in the country school will make a trained 
agriculturist, than that the teaching of 
grammar in the country school would 
produce a finished poet or prose writer, or 
that the teaching of physiology in country 
schools would produce an accomplished 
family physician. The teaching of the 
grammar has, however, added immense¬ 
ly to the accuracy of speaking and writ¬ 
ing English; and the study of physiology 
has done much toward preserving health 
and discounting quackery. 
CORN INSTITUTES. 
Institutes for young people have been 
held in a number of the counties of the 
State this year. This brings practical 
farming education to the youth who will 
soon be the bread earner. To enumerate 
all of these would require more time than 
would seem practicable in a short speech 
today. In Alachua county, as an illustra¬ 
tion, we held to March 26th, 14 of these 
institutes, with a total attendance of 955 
persons. (Since the above summary was 
made, several more institutes have been 
held, carrying the total number over a 
thousand.) Of this 955 above mentioned, 
626 were school pupils, 189 were men, 
and 140 women. This shows a lively in¬ 
terest in agricultural education in the 
State. Not only do the young people at¬ 
tend, but interest in the work is aroused 
among the older people. At these insti¬ 
tutes the lectures of the day were intro¬ 
ductory to the final object. The object 
of the lecturers was to instruct the pupils 
