‘Ibe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
245 
Qualifications of the Institute Lecturer 
What education is necessary to fit one 
for such work as going about the country 
lecturing at farmers’ institutes? The 
person in question had 10 years of prac¬ 
tical experience with home problems, and 
has a good high school education. 
M. .A. 
The inquirer has asked a question that 
might serve a.s a text for a long preach¬ 
ment. During some 25 years I have had 
the opportunity of witnessing tin* “try¬ 
out” of a fairly long list of people who 1 
felt they were called to instruct others— 
especially in farm institute work. The 
roster of survivors at the end of a season 
or two has been surprisingly short. At 
the same time I do not find it easy to say 
just what was the reason for the high : 
mortality. 
There have been some valuable men 
who dropped out of the work because their 
home affairs were so important that they 
could not afford to leave them. I remem- ! 
her one man, a genuine apostle of better 
dairying, who could be secured only rarely 
because in his barns at homo stood a herd 
of catt'le making 30-lb. records, and with 
a value in excess of a hundred thousand 
dollars, and his possible earnings as a 
speaker bore no relationship to the value 
of his time at home. 
There have been other good people who 
dropped out simply because of lark of 
physical endurance. In the old days of 
one-niglit stands, three sessions a day, 
six days a week, literally by the month, , 
it. took leathern lungs and a cast-iron 
digestion, together with a well-balanced 
nervous make-up to stand the pace. This 
was practically the old-time New York 
State farm institute schedule for many 
years. An easier, and. I hope, wiser sys¬ 
tem has'decreed a schedule of two ses¬ 
sions a day, and cut out night work, but 
I am afraid the old guard are inclined to 
view the present* plan as designed to fit 
the capabilities of effeminate weaklings. 
These, then, are the first two require¬ 
ments: A business that can be left be¬ 
hind. and at least a fairly sound and elas- j 
tie physical body. 
After these are the questions of special 
fitness. I do not place “book learning” 
or college degrees first. It has always 
been a favorite belief of mine that a man 
ov woman was bigger than any mere edu¬ 
cation can be. Understand me—the train¬ 
ing of the schools for special work is a 
splendid advantage in life for anyone, 
and given equal natural endowment, the 
educated man will always win over his 
untrained fellow, but I cannot forget that 
I have known some most efficient and suc¬ 
cessful extension teachers whose story 
came mainly out of their own large fund 
of experience and sound common sense, 
and I have seen some rather pitiful ex¬ 
hibitions on the part of young ladies and 
gentlemen who were very properly certi¬ 
fied to ns regards scholastic qualifications. 
Now this is in no way an indictment of 
education in itself, but only of education 
without the other essentials. 
I judge that there is nothing that can 
really take the place of a “story.” I>y 
story I mean a real experience or convic¬ 
tion that the person feels he wishes to 
pass on to others. The teacher of domes¬ 
tic economy—our present word for 
women’s work in the world—who has 
never actually kept house will be eter¬ 
nally handicapped in comparison with her 
more fortunate sister who has been for¬ 
tunate enough to possess that experience. 
So. too, really milking cows and teaching 
young calves to drink is what really adds 
the master’s degree to the young agricul¬ 
tural college graduate. 
Then not only must the teacher have 
a story, but he or she must have at least 
a reasonable amount of ease and grace in 
its presentation. I hate to use that most, 
contemptuous phrase, “a gift of gab.” but 
I am afraid that just about expresses the 
idea. A person may have genuine schol¬ 
arship and experience and invaluable ob¬ 
servation, yet this can hardly carry him 
along if tiie presentation is mechanical 
or wooden or sleepy. It is too bad that 
such is the ease, but after all our farm 
institute work and much of our university 
extension work is fundamentally inspira¬ 
tional in character, and ability to just 
“talk”—a dangerous art in some ways— 
seems to be needed. Of course, just as 
bad. or worse, is the oeeasional person 
who can talk fluently without any real 
thought behind it. lie may “get away 
with it” for a time, but not for long. 
Then there is the very vital essential 
of tact. A farm or home-makers’ audi¬ 
ence is in pari sometimes antagonistic and 
sometimes scornful, and the lecturer must, 
not make the entirely fatal mistake of 
arousing antagonism or of talking down 
from a lofty eminence. I’rolmbly talking 
“with” an audience rather than “at” or 
“to” is the summit of the extension work¬ 
er’s art. 
One thing more. If the “speaker” is 
really to last and come back to the same 
audience year after year and find a warm 
welcome, there must—there must—he 
genuine sincerity and high character. 
I don’t know why, but somehow there is 
something in the work that very quickly 
and automatically shakes out of it the un¬ 
worthy man. I am fortunate in being 
able to count ns friends a considerable 
number of successful farm institute work¬ 
ers in this and other States. They have 
been men of intelligence and training and 
observation and experience and reasonable 
(Continued on page 217) 
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Hakes a Tree Outgrow Its Troubles 
end ?$ of a Few 
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e time you spray for Pear Psylla, 7 Fire 
'anker and Collar Rot. ,■ / / 
before they lay,/ the: 
—tit is easy to conti 
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Roller and Tent-Caterpillar 
Twig \ye' Fire Blight by killing 
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i/bjids <show- gr< 
re hatching. ^Si 
lOO/ offspring,, i 
t-^ O " 1 - ^ 
formant 
Scalecide to stand at :Ahe top in' 
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