Chapters in Rural Progress

The typical farmers' institute is a meeting usually lasting two days, held for the purpose of discussing subjects that relate to the interests of farmers, more particularly those of a practical character. As a rule, the speakers to whom set topics are assigned are composed of two classes: the first class is made up of experts, either professors or experimenters in agricultural colleges and similar institutions, or practical farmers who have made such a study of, and such a conspicuous success in, some branch of agriculture that they may well be called experts; the second class comprises farmers living in the locality in which the institute is held. The experts are expected to understand general principles or methods, and the local speakers the conditions peculiar to the neighborhood.

The meeting usually begins in the forenoon and ends with the afternoon session of the second day – five sessions being held. As a rule, not over two or three separate topics are treated in any one session, and in a well-planned institute topics of a like character are grouped together, so that there may be a fruit session, a dairy session, etc. Each topic is commonly introduced by a talk or paper of twenty to forty minutes' length. This is followed by a general discussion in which those in the audience are invited to ask questions of the speaker relevant to the topic under consideration, or to express opinions and give experiences of their own.

This is a rough outline of the average farmers' institute, but of course there are many variations. There are one-day meetings and there are three-day meetings, and in recent years the one-day meetings have grown in favor; in some states local speakers take little part; in some institutes a question-box is a very prominent feature, in others it is omitted altogether; in some cases the evening programme is made up of educational topics, or of home topics, or is even arranged largely for amusement; in other instances the evening session is omitted. In most institutes women are recognized through programme topics of special interest to them.

It is not important to trace the early history of the farmers' institute movement, and indeed it is not very easy to say precisely when and where the modern institute originated. Farmers' meetings of various sorts were held early in the century. As far back as 1853 the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture recommended that farmers' institutes be made an established means of agricultural education. By 1871 Illinois and Iowa held meetings called farmers' institutes, itinerant in character, and designed to call together both experts and farmers, but neither state kept up the work systematically. Both Vermont and New Hampshire have held institutes annually since 1871, though they did not bear that name in the early years. Michigan has a unique record, having held regularly, since 1876, annual farmers' institutes, "so known and designated," which always have contained practically the essential features of the present-day institute. The Michigan legislature passed a law in 1861 providing for "lectures to others than students of the Agricultural College," and has made biennial appropriations for institutes since 1877. Ohio, in 1881, extended the institute idea to include every county in the state.

More important than the origin of the farmers' institute movement is the present status. Practically every state and territory in the Union carries on institutes under some form or other. In somewhat more than half the states, the authorities of the land-grant colleges have charge of the work. In the other states, the board of agriculture or the department of agriculture has control.

In 1905-6 there were held 3,500 institutes, in 45 states and territories, with a total reported attendance of 1,300,000 people, at a cost of nearly $350,000. The work is largely supported by the state treasuries, some of the states showing a most generous spirit. The annual state appropriations for the work in leading institute states are as follows: Pennsylvania, $20,500; New York, $20,000; Minnesota, $18,000; Illinois, $17,150; Ohio, $16,747; Wisconsin, $12,000; Indiana, $10,000. In these states practically every county has annually from one to five institutes.

Institutes in no two states are managed in the same way, but the system has fitted itself to local notions and perhaps to local needs. A rough division may be made – those states which have some form of central control and those which do not have. Even among states having a central management are found all degrees of centralization; Wisconsin and Ohio may be taken as the extremes. In Wisconsin the director of institutes, who is an employee of the university, has practically complete charge of the institutes. He assigns the places where the meetings are to be held, basing his decision upon the location of former institutes in the various counties, upon the eagerness which the neighborhoods seem to manifest toward securing the institute, etc. He arranges the programme for each meeting, suiting the topics and speakers to local needs, prepares advertising materials, and sets the dates of the meeting. A local correspondent looks after a proper hall for meeting, distributes the advertising posters, and bears a certain responsibility for the success of the institute. Meetings are arranged in series, and a corps of two or three lecturers is sent by the director upon a week's tour. One of these lecturers is called a conductor. He usually presides over the institute and keeps the discussions in proper channels. Practice makes him an expert. The state lecturers do most of the talking. Local speakers do not bear any large share in the programme. Questions are freely asked, however.

Ohio has an institute society in each county, and this society largely controls its own institutes. The secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, who has charge of the system, assigns dates and speakers to each institute. After that everything is in the hands of the local society, which chooses the topics to be presented by the state speakers, advertises the meeting, and the society president acts as presiding officer. Local speakers usually occupy half the time.

It does not seem as if either of these plans in its entirety were ideal – the one an extreme of centralized control, the other an extreme of local management. Yet in practice both plans work well. No states in the Union have better institutes nor better results from institute work than Wisconsin and Ohio. Skill, intelligence, and tact count for more than particular institutions.

New York may be said to follow the Wisconsin plan. Minnesota goes even a step farther; instead of holding several series of institutes simultaneously in different parts of the state, attended by different "crews," the whole corps of state speakers attends every institute. No set programmes are arranged. Everything depends upon local conditions. This system is expensive, but under present guidance very effective. Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania have adopted systems which are a mean between the plan of centralization and the plan of localization. Illinois has a plan admirably designed to encourage local interest, while providing for central management.

Few other states have carried institute work so far as the states already named, and in some cases there seems to be a prejudice against a well-centralized and fully-developed system – a feeling that each locality may be self-sufficing in institute work. But this attitude is wearing away, for experience serves to demonstrate fully the value of system. The danger of centralization is bureaucracy; but in institute work, if the management fails to provide for local needs, and to furnish acceptable speakers, vigorous protests soon correct the aberration.

It has been stated that in America we have no educational system– that spontaneity is the dominant feature of American education. This is certainly true of farmers' institutes. So it has transpired that numerous special features have come in to use in various states – features of value and interest. It may be worth while to suggest some of the more characteristic of these features, without attempting an exact category.

Formerly the only way in which women were recognized at the institutes was by home and social topics on the programme, though women have always attended the meetings freely. Some years ago Minnesota and Wisconsin added women speakers to their list of state speakers, and in the case of Wisconsin, at least, held a separate session for women, simultaneously with one or two sessions of the regular institute, with demonstration lectures in cooking as the chief features. Michigan holds "women's sections" in connection with institutes, but general topics are taken up. In Ontario separate women's institutes have been organized. In Illinois a State Association of Domestic Science has grown out of the institutes. Thus institute work has broadened to the advantage of farm women.

At many institutes there are exhibits of farm and domestic products – a sort of midwinter fair. Oftentimes the merchants of the town in which the institute is held offer premiums as an inducement to the farmers.

In Wisconsin an educational feature of much value takes the form of stock-judging – usually at the regular autumn fairs. The judges give their reasons for their decisions, thus emphasizing the qualities that go to make up a perfect or desirable animal.

In several states there is held an annual state institute called a "round-up," "closing institute," or the like. It is intended to be a largely attended and representative state convention of agriculturists, for the purpose of discussing topics of general interest to men and women from the farms. These meetings are frequently very large and enthusiastic gatherings.

The county institute society is a part of the organization in some instances very well developed. It gives permanency to the work and arouses local interest and pride.

The development of men and women into suitable state speakers is an interesting phase. As a rule the most acceptable speakers are men who have made a success in some branch of farming, and who also have cultivated the gift of clear and simple expression. Not a few of these men become adepts in public speaking and achieve a reputation outside of their own states. In several states there is held a "normal institute" – an autumn meeting lasting a week or two weeks, and bringing together, usually at the state college of agriculture, the men who are to give the lectures at the institutes of the winter to follow. The object of the gathering is to bring the lecturers into close contact with the latest things in agricultural science, and to train them for more effective work.

A few years ago the United States Department of Agriculture employed an experienced institute director to give all his time to the study and promotion of farmers' institutes. This incident is suggestive of the important place which institutes have secured in the work for better farming.

The results of a generation of institute work are not easy to summarize. It is safe to make a broad generalization by asserting that this form of agricultural education has contributed in a remarkable degree to better farming. The best methods of farming have been advocated from the institute platform. Agricultural college professors, and agricultural experimenters have talked of the relations of science to practical farming. The farmers have come to depend upon the institute as a means for gaining up-to-date information.

And if institutes have informed, they have also done what is still better – they have inspired. They have gone into many a dormant farm community and awakened the whole neighborhood to a quicker life. They have started discussions, set men thinking, brought in a breath of fresh air. They have given to many a farmer an opportunity for self-development as a ready speaker.

Other educational agencies, such as the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, have profited by institutes. No one thing has done more than the institutes to popularize agricultural education, to stir up interest in the colleges, to make the farmers feel in touch with the scientists.

Farmers' institutes are a phase of university extension, and it is as a part of the extension movement that they are bound to increase in value and importance. Reading-courses and correspondence-courses are growing factors in this extension movement, but the power of the spoken word is guarantee that the farmers' institute cannot be superseded in fact. And it is worth noting again, that while university extension has not been the success in this country which its friends of a decade ago fondly prophesied for it, its humbler cousin – agricultural college extension – has been a conspicuous success, and is acquiring a constantly increasing power among the educational agencies that are trying to deal with the farm problem.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HESPERIA MOVEMENT

The gulf between parent and teacher is too common a phenomenon to need exposition. The existence of the chasm is probably due more to carelessness, to the pressure of time, or to indolence than to any more serious delinquencies; yet all will admit the disastrous effects that flow from the fact that there is not the close intellectual and spiritual sympathy that there should be between the school and the home. It needs no argument to demonstrate the value of any movement that has for its purpose the bridging of the gulf. But it is an omen of encouragement to find that there are forces at work designed to bring teacher and school patron into a closer working harmony. A statement of the history and methods of some of these agencies may therefore well have a place in a discussion of rural progress. For the movements to be described are essentially rural-school movements. Of first interest is an attempt which has been made in the state of Michigan to bridge the gulf – to create a common standing-ground for both teacher and parent – and on that basis to carry on an educational campaign that it is hoped will result in the many desirable conditions which, a priori, might be expected from such a union. At present the movement is confined practically to the rural schools. It consists in the organization of a county Teachers and Patrons' Association, with a membership of teachers and school patrons, properly officered. Its chief method of work is to hold one or more meetings a year, usually in the country or in small villages, and the programme is designed to cover educational questions in such a way as to be of interest and profit to both teachers and farmers.

This movement was indigenous to Michigan – its founders worked out the scheme on their own initiative, and to this day its promoters have never drawn upon any resources outside the state for suggestion or plan. But if the friends of rural education elsewhere shall be attracted by this method of solving one of the vexed phases of their problem, I hope that they will describe it as "the Hesperia movement." For the movement originated in Hesperia, was developed there, and its entire success in Hesperia was the reason for its further adoption. Hesperia deserves any renown that may chance to come from the widespread organization of Teachers and Patrons' Associations.

And where is Hesperia? It lies about forty miles north and west of Grand Rapids – a mere dot of a town, a small country village at least twelve or fifteen miles from any railroad. It is on the extreme eastern side of Oceana County, surrounded by fertile farming lands, which have been populated by a class of people who may be taken as a type of progressive, successful, intelligent American farmers. Many of them are of Scotch origin. Partly because of their native energy, partly, perhaps, because their isolation made it necessary to develop their own institutions, these people believe in and support good schools, the Grange, and many progressive movements.

For several years there had existed in Oceana County the usual county teachers' association. But, because Hesperia was so far from the center of the county, and because it was not easily accessible, the teachers who taught schools in the vicinity could rarely secure a meeting of the association at Hesperia; and in turn they found it difficult to attend the meetings held in the western part of the county. A few years ago it chanced that this group of teachers was composed of especially bright, energetic, and original young men and women. They determined to have an association of their own. It occurred to someone that it would add strength to their organization if the farmers were asked to meet with them. The idea seemed to "take," and the meetings became quite popular. This was during the winter of 1885-86. Special credit for this early venture belongs to Mr. E. L. Brooks, still of Hesperia and an ex-president of the present association, and to Dr. C. N. Sowers, of Benton Harbor, Mich., who was one of the teachers during the winter named, and who was elected secretary of the Board of School Examiners in 1887. Mr. Brooks writes:

The programmes were so arranged that the participants in discussions and in the reading of papers were about equally divided between teachers and patrons. An active interest was awakened from the start. For one thing, it furnished a needed social gathering during the winter for the farmers. The meetings were held on Saturdays, and the schoolhouse favored was usually well filled. The meetings were not held at any one schoolhouse, but were made to circulate among the different schools. These gatherings were so successful that similar societies were organized in other portions of the country.

In 1892, Mr. D. E. McClure, who has since (1896-1900) been deputy superintendent of public instruction of Michigan, was elected county-school commissioner of Oceana County. Mr. McClure is a man of great enthusiasm and made a most successful commissioner. He conceived the idea that this union of teachers and patrons could be made of the greatest value, in stimulating both teachers and farmers to renewed interest in the real welfare of the children as well as a means of securing needed reforms. His first effort was to prepare a list of books suitable for pupils in all grades of the rural schools. He also prepared a rural lecture-course, as well as a plan for securing libraries for the schools. All these propositions were adopted by a union meeting of teachers and farmers. His next step was to unite the interests of eastern Oceana County and western Newaygo County (Newaygo lying directly east of Oceana), and in 1893 there was organized the "Oceana and Newaygo Counties Joint Grangers and Teachers' Association," the word "Granger" being inserted because of the activity of the Grange in support of the movement. Mr. McClure has pardonable pride in this effort of his, and his own words will best describe the development of the movement:

This association meets Thursday night and continues in session until Saturday night. Some of the best speakers in America have addressed the association. Dr. Arnold Tompkins, in speaking before the association, said it was a wonderful association and the only one of its character in the United States.

What was my ideal in organizing such associations?

1. To unite the farmers who pay the taxes that support the schools, the home-makers, the teachers, the pupils, into a co-operative work for better rural-school education.

2. To give wholesome entertainment in the rural districts, which from necessity are more or less isolated.

3. To create a taste for good American literature in home and school, and higher ideals of citizenship.

4. Summed up in all, to make the rural schools character-builders, to rid the districts of surroundings which destroy character, such as unkept school yards, foul, nasty outhouses, poor, unfit teachers. These reforms, you understand, come only through a healthy educational sentiment which is aroused by a sympathetic co-operation of farm, home, and school.

What results have I been able to discover growing out of this work? Ideals grow so slowly that one cannot measure much progress in a few years. We are slaves to conditions, no matter how hard, and we suffer them to exist rather than arouse ourselves and shake them off. The immediate results are better schools, yards, out-buildings, schoolrooms, teachers, literature for rural people to read.

Many a father and mother whose lives have been broken upon the wheel of labor have heard some of America's orators, have read some of the world's best books, because of this movement, and their lives have been made happier, more influential, more hopeful.

Thousands of people have been inspired, made better, at the Hesperia meetings.

In western Michigan the annual gathering at Hesperia is known far and wide as "the big meeting." The following extract from the Michigan Moderator-Topics indicates in the editor's breezy way the impression the meeting for 1906 made upon an observer:

Hesperia scores another success. Riding over the fourteen miles from the railroad to Hesperia with Governor Warner and D. E. McClure, we tried to make the latter believe that the crowd would not be forthcoming on that first night of the fourteenth annual "big meeting." It was zero weather and mighty breezy. For such a movement to succeed two years is creditable, to hold out for five is wonderful, to last ten is marvelous, but to grow bigger and better for fourteen years is a little short of miraculous. McClure is recognized as the father of the movement and his faith didn't waver a hair's breadth. And sure enough there was the crowd – standing room only, to hear the governor and see the great cartoonist J. T. McCutcheon of the Chicago Tribune. For three evenings and two days the big hall is crowded with patrons, pupils and teachers from the towns and country round. During the fourteen years that these meetings have been held, the country community has heard some of the world's greatest speakers. The plan has been adopted by other counties in Michigan and other states both east and west. Its possibilities are well-nigh unlimited and its power for good is immeasurable. Everyone connected with it may well feel proud of the success attending the now famous "Hesperia Movement."

In 1897, Kent County, Michigan (of which Grand Rapids is the county seat), organized a Teachers and Patrons' Association that is worth a brief description, although in more recent years its work has been performed by other agencies. It nevertheless serves as a good example of a well-organized association designed to unite the school and home interests of rural communities. It was for several years signally successful in arousing interest in all parts of the county. Besides, it made a departure from the Oceana-Newaygo plan which must be considered advantageous for most counties. The Hesperia meeting is an annual affair, with big crowds and abundant enthusiasm. The Kent County association was itinerant. The membership included teachers, school officers, farmers generally, and even pupils. An attempt was made to hold monthly meetings during the school year, but for various reasons only five or six meetings a year were held. The meetings usually occurred in some Grange hall, the Grange furnishing entertainment for the guests. There were usually three sessions – Friday evening and Saturday forenoon and afternoon. The average attendance was nearly five hundred, about one-tenth being teachers; many teachers as well as farmers went considerable distances to attend.

The Kent County association did not collect any fees from its members, the Teachers' Institute fund of the county being sufficient to provide for the cost of lectures at the association meetings. Permission for this use of the fund was obtained from the state superintendent of public instruction. Some counties have a membership fee; at Hesperia, the fee is 50 cents, and a membership ticket entitles its holder to a reserved seat at all sessions. The Kent County association also suggested a reading-course for its members.

The success of the work in Kent County was due primarily to the fact that the educators and the farmers and their leaders are in especially close sympathy. And right there is the vital element of success in this work. The initiative must be taken by the educators, but the plan must be thoroughly democratic, and teacher and farmer must be equally recognized in all particulars. The results of the work in Kent County were thus summarized by the commissioner of schools of the county: