Texas A and M University - Aggieland Yearbook (College Station, TX)

Page 32 text:

Charles H. Alvord, M.S. Agr. Director The Extension Service np ' HE A. and M. College, in co-operation with the United ih States Department of Agriculture, has the largest Extension organization in the United States. Texas started the Demon¬ stration Work which spread all over the country, and caused Congress and State authorities to make appropriations for the support of a system of extension activities. Such work is carried on at the land-grant colleges and in the counties of the different states. The A. and M. College was the first in the country to provide a separate building for headquarters for such work. Other colleges are constantly writing to Texas for information and suggestions along these lines. More than 300 agents, supervisors, and specialists are employed in this enterprise. Including county, state, and federal funds, nearly a million dollars are expended each year in conducting this work in Texas, while the total appropriations for the whole country run above twenty millions. During the first week in February, 1929, the Extension Agents of Texas will have as their guests their fellow workers of all the other states in a great convention in Houston. This will be the 25th Anniversary of the founding of this work in Texas. Other educational associ¬ ations will unite in the celebration. The Association of Southern Agricultural Workers has already accepted the invitation. The first farm demonstration was conducted on the farm of Walter C. Porter near Terrell, Texas, in 1903. Dr. Seaman A. Knapp secured the support of the business men and conducted the demonstration. James Wilson, the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, who, by the way, served as a Cabinet officer longer than anyone else in the entire history of the country, came to Houston in the fall of 1903 and made arrangements for Dr. Knapp to begin appointing agents to put on hundreds of such demonstrations. Dr. Knapp had his headquarters in Houston at first, then at Lake Charles, Louisiana, and afterwards at Washington, where he extended the organization and established co-operative relations, with the colleges, and fostered thousands of demonstrations with crops, livestock, soil building, and home building. At first the work on the farms was conducted by adult farmers, but the boys wanted to have a part in A it, so corn clubs were begun. Then the boys took up other lines of agriculture. The girls made demonstration gardens, using tomatoes at first. Then they took up other vegetables and fruit and poultry. With the help of the mothers a system of home demonstration work was evolved. The 4-H Clubs became an important phase of the general plan, and now millions of farm and home demonstrations are conducted every year. The Extension Agents give a definition something like this: “A demonstration is a progressive, practical example of better farming or home making, by a farmer or a member of his family, which leads to more profit, comfort, culture, influence and power.” There are nearly two hundred men agents, specialists and supervisors engaged in the field operations of the Extension Service. Of this number eighty-seven are graduates of the A. and M. College of Texas. When it is considered that the vocational education work calls for about the same number of teachers, and that chambers of commerce, railroads, fertilizer companies and other organizations and institutions employ men in related and similar lines, it seems that many students of the college may look forward to careers of usefulness by being well prepared for such activities. Page 2b

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The School of Vocational Teaching DEPARTMENTS Agricultural Education Rural Education Industrial Education C. H. Winkler, B.S., A.M., Ph.D. Dean lOOUR courses of study may be pursued in the School of Vocational Teaching; each of them A- leads to a degree. The course in Agricultural Education is designed to give the teacher of vocational agriculture the preparation and training, in both technical agriculture and in educa¬ tion subjects, required to qualify under the Federal Vocational Education act. The purpose of the course in Industrial Arts is to prepare men to teach Industrial Arts or Manual Training as offered in the public schools. The course in Industrial Education is intended to train teachers, supervisors and directors for the general continuation and trade and industrial schools of Texas. The course in Rural Education is offered in response to the increasing demand for high school principals and superintendents who have had the benefit of an agricultural college education in their preparation for leadership in the solution of rural-life problems. The graduate work of the school occupies an important place in the College. During the preceding year the enrollment in the graduate courses of the School of Vocational Teaching amounted to eighty per cent of the total enrollment of the Graduate School. Each year a large number of the graduates from this school take their places in the educa¬ tional system of the State. Two out of every three of the teachers of Vocational Agriculture trained in Texas are graduates of this school, while four out of five obtained the major part of their technical training at the A. and M. College. The influence of the high school tuition bill passed by the Thirty-ninth Legislature is bringing into small-town high schools many farm boys who were heretofore denied the privilege. This in turn has resulted in the establishment of a larger number of new departments of Vocational Agriculture in such high schools, thus increasing the demand for teachers of Agriculture. Since the inauguration of Industrial Education under the Federal Vocational Education Act in 1917 Industrial Arts has been grossly neglected by the high schools of Texas. Presumably this attitude was due to the assumption that Industrial Education would take its place. There is now a renewed interest in Industrial Arts and a clearer concept of its function in the high school curriculum which has created a demand for trained teachers far in excess of the supply. Through the Industrial Education Department in co-operation with the various departments of the School of Engineering, the school now offers every requisite for the complete preparation of these teachers in one of its four-year courses. Through the Division of Visual Instruction, films, lantern slides, and chart services have been maintained by the School for teachers of Vocational Agriculture, county agents and other exten¬ sion workers. Page 25

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Tlie Experiment Station f’fp ' HE Texas Agricultural Experiment Station is the Agricul- tural Research Division of the A. and M. College of Texas. The Experiment Station was established at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the College, held January 25, 1888, soon after the College was established, it being realized that a fact¬ finding agency was desirable and necessary in connection with agricultural teachings and with the proper development of the State’s agricultural resources. The Agricultural Experiment Station consists of a staff of 54 scientifically-trained workers, with facilities consisting of buildings, laboratories, and field stations for the study of im¬ portant agricultural problems of Texas. The organization consists of twenty divisions, fifteen sub-stations, and six field laboratories located in the principal agricultural regions of the State. The Agricultural Experiment Station encourages work on the part of graduate students and offers the use of data, records, and laboratories to graduate students who desire to familiarize themselves with research methods. Many notable contributions to agriculture have been made by the Agricultural Experiment Station since its establishment, among which are the development of the Texas Fever immuniza¬ tion process, which resulted in greatly advancing the cattle industry in all tick-infested regions; the introduction and improvement of grain sorghums and the determination of their true feeding value as compared to corn, thus giving to West Texas a basic grain crop supporting its agricul¬ ture, and many other accomplishments of value in developing fully the agricultural resources of Texas. Many important problems are now under investigation, including such outstanding problems as the cotton root-rot disease, which disease is estimated to cause an annual loss of millions of dollars to Texas alone; the study of the loin disease of cattle, an obscure disease causing heavy losses of cattle in certain sections; the study of the conservation of water and soil fertility, and many other important problems of concern to the State and Nation. The Texas Agricultural Experiment Station is a conservative agency, which bases its con¬ clusions on overwhelming evidence brought to light through experimental work in connection with a particular problem. Results so obtained are reliable and are available to the other branches of the College in the teaching and dissemination of agricultural information and in the development of the agricultural resources of the State along safe and sound lines. The reports, bulletins and circulars issued by the Station System are distributed to the farmers and stockmen and other citizens of Texas for the asking. Page 27