Nineteen States favor a centralized control; four think it should be in charge of local managers. It is thought by at least one manager of State institutes that local talent is very inadequate to meet the demands of science. The general rule in the selection of speakers by the management is this: The official speakers are selected by the State or college authorities having charge of the work, and the local speakers by the local committee. But the answers seem somewhat scattering. Maryland would have the speakers selected by the local committee with reference to needs of communities; Minnesota wants practical men, and Mississippi sends the men who can be spared most easily from the work of college and station. This matter of the selection of speakers may be dismissed by putting the weight of the opinions in the form of "official speakers to open the road and local men to lead the audience in discussion." The number of sessions held at each meeting varies from one to six, but in general the opinion is that there should be either one or two days devoted to the institute, and that in the case of the one-day institute there should be three sessions, and in the case of the two-day institute there should be five sessions. The number of sessions held during the winter varies considerably. Michigan, Iowa, and New Jersey have 1 in each county; Delaware has 4 to 6 in each county; Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island have from 20 to 25; California, South Dakota, and Mississippi have from 12 to 16; Indiana and Wisconsin have 100 or more; Ohio, 150; New York, 250; Missouri, Minnesota, and Maine, in the neighborhood of 50 or 60 each; Idaho, 2, etc. Some of the States speak highly of the summer institute. The attendance at these meetings is given in round numbers, except in the case of Wisconsin, where there was an attendance of "494 at last year's meetings,” and Ohio, where the attendance was 423.3. In Delaware the attendance varied from 30 to 200 each; in Georgia, from 50 to 500; in New York, 100 to 800; in Indiana it was 250; in Idaho, 100; in California and Mississippi, 200, etc. All the States reply that the interest and attendance is increasing. The great majority of the States also find a marked increase in the intelligence and critical character of their audiences, demanding a higher order of ability and special training on the part of the speakers. Thus Maine reports, "Speakers who did good several years ago are of no use now." New Jersey reports that after a good institute, university extension lectures have been demanded, and, when obtained, supported. At least half a dozen other States speak with similar emphasis; others are not sɔ positive. The work in the institutes is reported to have had considerable effect in improving the methods of culture employed in working the soil, especially in the localities which have exhibited a lively interest in the work of the institute. The majority of States think that the institutes should be increased in number and advanced in character. Two or more want to invade the remote rural regions, where much missionary work is possible. In ten States all expense is paid out of State funds. In one all the cost is upon the county. In six States the agricultural college and the local committee divide the cost between them. In one the university pays it all. In another the college faculty volunteer, the railroads furnish passes, and the local managers entertain the speakers and furnish the hall. In all others the State furnishes a fixed part of the expenses, and the local managers furnish the residue. Where appropriations have been made directly by the State, they have been increased. The amounts now appropriated by these States are: The speakers are paid $2, $3, or $5 per diem; in Delaware they are paid according to value, from $5 to $20 for a lecture. Some States pay only expenses; others a per diem and expenses. Wisconsin pays $25 for four days' work to the conductor, $20 to his regular assistant, and $5 per diem and expenses to others. The exact cost of an institute in Ohio was $69.04. In Wisconsin, in the winter of 1891-95, it was about $58, though for the eight preceding years it had been about $110. The system of farmers' institutes is very thoroughly organized in Pennsylvania. The institute in that State is a propaganda not only for good farming, but for - good housekeeping, good sanitary surroundings, and good roads. In addition to this there is an educational session of a very practical and otherwise valuable nature, in which the "proper education for country children" is discussed in connection with country graded schools and township high schools. In fact, the sample programme published by the agricultural department of Pennsylvania is so interesting and suggestive that it has been inserted here in reduced form, the original circular being composed of four octavo pages on good paper and well printed. (COVER.) SAMPLE PROGRAM.-This sample is designed as an aid to institute managers in making up their programs. 7.15. EDUCATIONAL SESSION. In the Interest of Education for Farmers and their Children. Music. Thursday evening, November 6, 7.00. What is the Proper Education for Country Children? By 7.45. Should we Have Graded Schools in the Country? 8.30. By Should we Have a Redistribution of the School Funds Appropriated by the State? 9.15. Ought there to be Township High Schools? By 10.00. Adjournment. SPECIAL NOTICE. The foregoing order will be followed as closely as possible, but other exercises will be introduced if found desirable. Speeches, essays, and papers ought not to exceed twenty minutes. The papers, when read, are considered the property of the Department of Agriculture. Although these institutes are designed and conducted for the education and advantage of farmers, yet all who are interested are invited to attend, and it is hoped that they will show their appreciation, not only by being present at the meetings, but also by taking part in the discussions. ASK QUESTIONS. A question box will be kept upon the secretary's desk, and all are invited to place therein such questions as they may wish to have discussed during the session. At a proper time, designated by the meeting, these questions will be referred to some one for answer, or brought up for general discussion. All granges, alliances, agricultural societies, and kindred agricultural organizations are specially invited to attend." For further information and for programs address Name, Trains on the B. C. R. R. arrive from the East at 8.30 a. m. and 5.19 p. m.; from the West at 9.40 a. m, and 9.38 p. m. On the P. R. R. trains from the East arrive at 4.52 and 9.54 a. m. and 4.32 p. m.; from the West at 10.18 a. m. and 5.08 and 9.23 p. m. IV. THE AGRICULTURAL COURSE IN THE FRENCH COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE. It is evident to anyone who will take the trouble to survey the field of agricultural curriculums that, though the term "education" is popularly synonymous with "school." and "degree" with "learning," the "agricultural college " is by no means the same thing as the "agricultural course." As the reason for this seems rather unobvious, it may be permitted to the compiler of the foregoing ⚫ matter to enlarge upon the subject. In the first place, it is important to recall that each one of us is aware not only of his own personality, "the thing he calls himself," but also of an infinitely varied panorama or series of phenomena outside himself, which he instinctively insists is not a mere modification of himself. Equipped with this reflection, it may now be said that in the early educational process, whether on the banks of the Nile, the Euphrates, or the Seine, men gathered together in monastic-like establishments for the purpose of elaborating the spiritual self and fashioned a method of accomplishing their object, which in a wonderful degree facilitated the growth of language and confidence in logical soliloquy, or, as Bacon calls it, the intellectus sibi permissus. Dissatisfaction having set in with this method of education, owing to astronomical proof of its limitations when it attempted to account for physical phenomena, man turned to the consideration of the world without him as to a sphere of matter of fact, and this new process or education was called at first philosophia experimentalis, to distinguish it from the intellectus sibi permissus philosophy, as elaborated by the Greeks, from what, so it seems, they had an 1 Nec manus nuda, nec intellectus sibi permissus multum valet; instrumentis et auxiliis res perficitur. Novum Organum, Aph. II. (Neither the naked hand nor the intellect thrown back upon itself amounts to much. Investigation requires instruments and aids.) opportunity to pick up in Egypt and Mesopotamia in their naive educational effort to free the human mind from coarse superstition and brutality by diffusing knowledge, even though, as Plato claimed, they manufactured it for sale.1 Thus throughout the history of education since the Reformation we have two systems of education, one old and established, which is based on the development of the self within, and the other based on what is from without and distinguished from self; and this new education proceeds by the widest accumulations of facts and their reduction to so-called laws. But though the methods of these two systems as instruments for the instruction of the young are opposed, they agree in having the same object, which is to train the pupil to reason rightly and to go out into the world with a love of simplicity, of independence, and of work; a passion for justice, a disdain for hollow declamation and falsehood, and a contempt for vain distinctions and ill-acquired riches; in short, their object is to inculcate the virtues of perseverance, courage, respect of family, and all the solemn plausibilities of a noble life. In organizing this new or so-called scientific instruction, however, the monastic form of congregation into educational temples has been followed. We have had seats of learning rather than a diffusion of learning, though now those seats have entered upon the instruction of the people with an enthusiasın that it is hoped may not be prematurely chilled by a comprehension of the difficulties and the Herculean labors of the task. The study of agriculture is the study of nature. Agriculture is not a branch of chemistry or of botany, but chemistry and botany are branches of it. It is not dependent upon industry, but industry is dependent upon it. Minerals existed before vegetation, and it is the province of vegetation, in a biological sense, to convert mineral matter into food. Thus the course of an agricultural college is an encyclopedia of sciences, and the following remarks are an effort to illustrate the so called agricultural course in the curriculum of the French agricultural colleges by the other concurrent courses. DISCIPLINE IN FRENCH AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. The students of the French colleges of agriculture are treated in the same way as those of the literary colleges called lycées; that is, all exuberance is repressed by certain monitors or surveillants who watch, under the authority of the director of the school, for infractions of order and discipline among the students. Each college has two of these gentry and one a surveillant-général. The average age of the students on admission is 19 to 20 years. "The long school hours and the constant supervision in the French colleges are favorable to discipline, and the Frenchman is born with a turn for military precision and exactitude which makes the teacher fall easily into the habit of command and the pupil into that of obedience. French teachers who have seen English schools are struck with the greater looseness of order and discipline in them, even during class hours, and I have seen2 large classes in France worked and moved with a perfection of drill that one sometimes finds in the best elementary schools in England, but rarely, I think, in English classical schools."2 = - The "notation" of examinations adopted by the national French schools of agriculture runs from 0 to 20: 0 = nothing (néant); 1 and 2: very bad; 3, 4, and 5 = bad; 6, 7, and 8 mediocre; 9, 10, and 11 = passable; 12, 13, and 14 pretty good; 15, 16, and 17 good; 18 and 19 very good; 20 = perfect. The standing is obtained in the following manner: For students of the first and second year, take the average of marks of the particular examinations and practical tests held by the repetiteurs during the year and multiply it by 3, then the average of the marks obtained at the general examination at the end of the course 1 In the Gorgias or What is Rhetoric, for instance. 2 Matthew Arnold: Schools and universities on the continent, page 80. |