d among the boys and girls--an interest which the ordinary rural
school sadly fails even in attempting to arouse. All told throughout
the State 3,872 colored people attended these schools the first year.
The sessions were usually opened by a prayer offered by one of the
rural preachers. In one such prayer the preacher said among other
things: "O Lord, have mercy on dis removable school; may it purmernate
dis whole lan' an' country!" At another meeting, after the workers had
finished a session, some of the leading colored farmers were called on
to speak. One of them opened his remarks with the words: "I ain't no
speaker, but I jes wan' a tell you how much I done been steamilated by
dis my only two days in school!"

A report of one of these schools held recently at Monroeville, Ala.,
reads: "Only subjects with which the rural people are directly
concerned are introduced and stressed by the instructors, such as
pasture making, necessary equipment for a one and two horse farm, care
of farm tools, crop rotation, hog raising, care of the cow, seed
selection, diversified farming, how to make homemade furniture,
fighting the fly, and child welfare.

"The home economics teacher attracted the attention of all the colored
farmers and also the white visitors by constructing out of dry goods
boxes an attractive and substantial dresser and washstand, completing
the same before the audience, even to the staining, varnishing,
hanging the mirrors and attaching the draperies." One paper, in
estimating the value of these Movable Agricultural Schools said:
"Given ten years of good practical agricultural instruction of the
kind that was imparted to the Negro farmers, their wives and children,
for the past three weeks in Wilcox, Perry, and Lowndes counties, there
is no reason why every Negro farmer in the State should not only help
'Alabama feed herself,' but so increase the yield of its marketable
products that the State will be able to export millions of dollars'
worth of food and foodstuffs each year."

These Extension Schools are advertised by posters just like a country
circus, except that the language is less grandiloquent. On the
following page is a typical announcement presented in heavy black type
on yellow paper.

[Illustration:

Co-operative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics

STATE OF ALABAMA

FARMERS ATTENTION!

AN EXTENSION SCHOOL

OF

AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS

FOR

COLORED FARMERS, BOYS, G