community and commonwealth. The farmer is a part of society. These economic and social relations must be studied from the farm point of view. These subjects are practically untouched, although the terms "rural economics" and "rural sociology” are coming into the curricula of colleges of agriculture. We are establishing such work at Cornell, but it greatly needs extension. I am "professor of rural economy:" my assistant does the teaching. A large body of thought and philosophy has been developed in these lines in Europe, particularly in Germany. These subjects are in many ways the most important that fall to the field of a college of agriculture. Economic and social questions are proper subjects to be taught in a college of agriculture, so far as they bear on rural questions. They must be founded, of course, on the study of sound principles as taught regularly in arts colleges. The application of them to country-life conditions is founded on agricultural thought and practice; and many of the questions are purely agricultural. Rural economics is as logically a part of our agricultural curriculum as is agricultural chemistry. The entire effort of a college of agriculture is devoted to the elevation of country living: that is, it eventuates into social and economic studies. 8. Normal Department.—It is devolving largely on the colleges of agriculture to revive and redirect the rural school. The schools must be made effective in their localities. We do not need new subjects in the schools so much as reorganization. Teachers must be trained for the new school, and a good part of the responsibility of training them must rest with the agricultural colleges, because these colleges are near the problem. The recent report of the Commission on Industrial and Technical Education for Massachusetts, under the chairmanship of Carroll D. Wright, proposes that a normal department be established in the Massachusetts Agricultural College to train teachers for the rural schools of that state; and a bill embodying this recommendation is now before the Massachusetts legislature. In our own case we already have the beginnings of normal work in the two-year special course in nature-study for teachers; the need of reorganizing and extending this department I consider to be urgent. II. EXTENSION WORK The extension work comprises all those teaching enterprises that are not of academic kind and that aim to reach the people and their problems in the places where the problems are. It is capable of accomplishing great good. In fact, it is a question whether it is not the most needful just now of any agricultural teaching. It should be clearly separated from college work, with its own staff of experts trained especially for it. In this way it is not at all inconsistent with college efforts, but rather a supplement to them; and it need in no way detract from the efficiency and standing of academic teaching. The extension department becomes a bureau of publicity. The extension enterprises fall into several categories, the leading ones of which are as follows: 1. Special-Course Instruction-Here may perhaps be included various special courses in a college of agriculture, not founded on full entrance requirements and probably not of full college grade, designed for persons who have not had adequate school advantages or have not the time or opportunity for a full course and who want the work for its bona fide agricultural value. At Cornell, we allow such persons to enter the regular classes in the College of Agriculture; but this practice needs to be carefully re-studied both in the interest of the regular four-year student and of the special student himself. Whether the special student work, in our case, should be considered an extension enterprise will develop with the progress of the extension enterprise itself. 2. Winter-Courses-In the present stage of our educational development and in the absence of any secondary schools that are prepared to do agricultural teaching, winter-courses or other very brief courses are a practical necessity. At Cornell we now provide five winter-courses; (1) general agriculture; (2) dairying; (3) poultry; (4) horticulture; (5) home economics. We need to make the winter-course work progressive so that a student may return for one or more winters. This will probably come about by equipping the general agriculture winter-course for all undifferentiated students, and advising students to return to pursue one of the special winter-courses, or possibly to enter the special-course. 3. Extension Work By Students-Certain kinds of helpfulness can be carried into various parts of the state by students, particularly in the organizing of societies, reading-clubs, holding of meetings, and the like. Students may constitute very good advance agents if they are carefully chosen and are well guided. The students in the College of Agriculture are now engaged in this work in Tompkins County, which for the time being may be regarded as a laboratory and proving ground for certain extension enterprises. This move ment may well be spread, and become a part of college extension work. New York State is the proper laboratory for the College of Agriculture. 4. Reading-Courses-The chief object of a reading-course is to increase the reading habit to the end that the correspondent may read not only more reading-course literature but more good periodicals and books. A recent study of our own reading-course work shows that such result is secured. Aside from this, a reading-course should set the reader straight on principles and should give him reliable information. It should not deal in news or discussion of events. A reading-course enterprise should also include the subject of travelling libraries. Our own reading-courses are two, each with its special publication or bulletins. Five bulletins have been published in each course in the year 1905-6. It is expected that these bulletins (now numbering thirty in the Farmers' Course and twenty in the Women's Course) will conclude the regular serial publication of new issues of a bulletin character. It is the plan to keep these bulletins in stock for use in starting off new readers. At May 1, 1906, the statistics of the reading-courses stand as follows: I. Readers in Farmers' Reading-Course Number of Clubs.___ 2. Readers in Farmers' Wives' Reading-Course- 6,593 44 20,237 46 5. School Work-The rural schools must look largely to the colleges of agriculture for help and guidance. The normal department of such a college should have its extension bureau. The greatest problem in extension work at present is with the public schools. This is particularly true in New York State, following the adoption of the State syllabi for nature-study and agriculture. This College should aid in working out the syllabi in the schools of the State. The present nature-study enterprise of the College of Agriculture falls under three heads, in the hands of three persons: gardens, by John W. Spencer; Junior Naturalist work, by Miss McCloskey; correspondence instruction for teachers, by Mrs. Comstock. Following are the statistics of this work, May 1, 1906: 2. Children enrolled in Junior Naturalist Clubs____ 25,111 Number of children's letters read 3. Rural school teachers of New York State enrolled Colleges and libraries enrolled. 1,217 15,064 849 129 144 6. Experiments and Demonstrations on Farms.-It is now an accepted part of the work of an agricultural college to make demonstrations and tests on farms and in gardens. There are three purposes in this extension experiment work: (1) To illustrate or teach, -to instruct the cooperator in methods, to set him at the working out of his own problems, to bring him into touch with the latest discoveries and points of view. (2) To demonstrate or determine in various parts of the state the value or the inefficiency of various new theories and discoveries, -to determine how far these newer ideas are applicable to local conditions. (3) To discover new truth, which may be worthy of record in bulletins : this is usually the least of the results that follow from such experiments, because the experiments are not under perfect control nor continuously under the eye of a trained observer. This kind of teaching provides laboratory work for the farmer on his own farm. In our own case the general plan of work is mutual or cooperative, the farmer to provide land and labor and to have the crop, the expert to give advice and supervision and, so far as possible, to' inspect the work. In some cases the College furnishes seeds and other materials. It does not furnish fertilizers. The benefit of the experiment or demonstration is expected to accrue mostly to the person on whose place the work is done. We are rapidly approaching a turning-point in this demonstration work; we should either extend and deepen it, or consider a fundamental modification in the plan. This kind of work is no longer in its initiate stage. The statistics of cooperative or demonstration experiments for 1905-06 are as follows: Number of experiments in charge of department of Number of experiments in charge of department of horticulture. 30 Number of experiments in charge of department of 15 125 Number of cooperative record-tests by poultry sub- There were also experiments of a similar kind conducted by the departments of agricultural chemistry and botany. 7. Tests and Inspections.-Various kinds of tests and inspections fall to the colleges of agriculture. One of the leading groups is the testing of milk for butter-fat in order to determine whether the cow is entitled to be recorded in the official registry of the breed. These tests are paid for by the breeders, or their associations, but the work is performed by persons employed by the College of Agriculture. At the close of the official year last August, the department of animal husbandry had made 180 tests in the State of Holstein cows, for 85 owners. Tests were also made of Guernseys. At one time the department had 24 men employed in this work. The work for the present year will not be less. As a part of its extension work, the department of dairy industry endeavors to come in close contact with a large number of buttermakers, cheese-makers, milk-shippers, and milk-producers. Last summer an officer of the department spent most of his time traveling in the state visiting persons engaged in dairy work, showing them where improvements might be made and frequently remaining with them long enough to put the suggestions into operation. This summer probably twice as much work will be done. We have many requests from former winter-course students and others to assist them when in difficulty with their dairy work. Sometimes the difficulty is bacterial infection, the source of which must be removed; sometimes it is inability to produce the particular kind of product required by the market; sometimes it is need of advice as to new building operations or repairs. A few of these requests are answered by a personal visit, but in most cases a detailed letter is sufficient. With the enlargement of facilities and personnel, we propose to undertake the thorough study of certain important problems in the State. One or these is the richness of milk as it is sold in different parts of the State. We are arranging to have a large number of samples sent from cities, towns, farms, restaurants, to be tested for fatcontent. Information gathered in this way will be useful in study |