s set up an honourable rivalry between such States as
Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota, in developing the
agricultural sides of their Universities and Colleges. None the less,
Mr. James J. Hill has recently given it as his opinion that not more
than one per cent of the farmers of these regions are working in direct
touch with any educational institution. It is probable that this
estimate leaves out of account the indirect influence of the vast amount
of extension work and itinerant instruction which is embraced in the
activities of the Universities and Colleges. I fear it cannot be denied
that in the application of the natural sciences to the practical, and of
economic science to the business of farming, the country folk are
decades behind their urban fellow-citizens. And again I say the
disparity is to be attributed to the difference in their respective
degrees of organisation for business purposes.

The relation between business organisation and economic progress ought,
I submit, to be very seriously considered by the social workers who
perceive that progress is mainly a question of education. Speaking from
administrative experience at home, and from a good deal of interested
observation in America, I am firmly convinced that the new rural
education is badly handicapped by the lack of organised bodies of
farmers to act as channels for the new knowledge now made available. In
some instances, I am aware, great good has been done by the formation of
farmers' institutes which have been established in order to interest
rural communities in educational work and to make the local arrangements
for instruction by lectures, demonstrations and otherwise. But all
European experience proves the superiority for this purpose of the
business association to the organisation _ad hoc_, and has a much better
chance of permanence.

Again, the influence upon rural life of the agricultural teaching of the
Colleges and Universities, as exercised by their pupils, may be too
easily accepted as being of greater potential utility than any work
which these institutions can do amongst adults. This is a mistake. The
thousands of young men who are now being trained for advanced farming
too often have to restrict the practical application of their theoretic
knowledge to the home circle, which is not always responsive, for a man
is not usually a prophet in his own family. It is here that the
educational value of cooperative societies