5, and should be read by every farmer in the country. This commission
was the resultant of many forces exerted around family firesides, in the
schoolroom, in the press, on the platform, in conventions, in
legislatures, and in the halls of Congress. For the first time in this
country, the conditions and possibilities of rural life were made the
subjects of investigation and report to a national body. Thus the
Commission became thenceforth a potent cause of the attention and
impetus since given to the problems we are discussing.

=Mixed Farming.=--In recent years, too, what may be called "scientific
farming" has become a decided "movement" and is now very extensively
practiced. This includes diversified farming, rotation of crops, stock
raising, the breeding of improved stock, better plowing, and a host of
matters connected with the farmer's occupation. Thus farming is becoming
neither a job nor an avocation, but a genuine vocation, or profession.
It requires for its success all the brains, all the ingenuity, all the
attention and push that an intelligent man can give it; and, withal, it
promises all the variety, the interest, the happiness, and the success
that any profession can offer.

=Now Before the Country.=--The movement in behalf of a richer rural life
and of better rural schools is now before the country. It is the subject
of discussion everywhere. It is in the limelight; the literature on the
subject is voluminous; books without number, on all phases of the
subject, are coming from the press. Educational papers and magazines,
and even the lay press, are devoting unstinted space to discussions on
country life and the rural school. The country has the whole question
"on the run," with a fair prospect of an early capture. On pages 182-186
we give a bibliography of a small portion of the literature on these
questions which has come out recently.

=Educational Extension.=--Within the last few years the movement known
as "extension work," connected with the educational institutions, has
had a rapid growth. The state universities, agricultural colleges, and
normal schools in almost every state are doing their utmost to carry
instruction and education in a variety of forms to communities beyond
their walls. They are vying with each other in their extension
departments, in extra-mural service of every possible kind. In many
places institutions are even furnishing musical performances and other
forms of entertainment at