t 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