News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1922-06-14
RESULTS OF HOME DEMON
STRATION WORK

satisfactory? | suppose when we
consider that we spend only one day
month in one place we have per-
haps accomplished as much as we
could we'll expect to. We certainly
would not feel that after ten days at
school much work in any one course
could be completed. Still we have
not done as much as we planned to,
or as we wanted to. In some places
we have seemed to lose interest.
Some we know are dissatisfied with
the work. What is the matter?
Let US look for time at the or
us start at the beginning. For a
long time scientific methods and
principles in both agriculture and
homemaking have been proven by
research and experiment Our col
lege men and women knew them,
used them and believed them. They
ganization of extension work and let
taught them to their students. But
the people as whole, who go to
make up our nation, were not in any
way benefited and it was felt that
times would be better, if throughout
our land we could introduce pratices
in agriculture and homemaking. 1t
could be done of course in another
generation by instruction in schools
and colleges, but how about the pres
ent generation? Why not pass it on
to them, too? Therefore, for that
purpose, extension service was or
ganized and by legislation, funds
were appropriated for extension
work and workers. This work
had to be standardized, of course and
have some controlling organization
Therefore, we have the central
directing staff at Washington. At
this office, however, it was impossible
to do more than to direct the organ
ization of the work and to sum up
the results. 1t was impracticable
70 nave d IoICc ldI &c CiOuSH az
Washington to go out and organize
the work in the states. Therefore,
state extension staff was created
which usually had it's headquarters
at the State Agricultural College
This staff is composed of our director
of extension work, assistant director,
state county agent leader, state home
demonstration leader and our numer-
Gus specialists. But in turn it was
impossible for this staff to spread it
self out over the state sufficiently to
organize and carry on an efficient
scheme of work. Therefore, you
have your county staff or unit of ex-
tension workers, the county agricul-
tural agent, the home demonstration
agent and your county agent. 1t is
here that the Farm Bureau Associa-
ton and the Extension Service come
together in employing comparatively
the staff of county agents and in CO.
operatively supporting them. 1t is
the duty of these county agents to
act as advisors in organizing the
work within the county under the
direction of the state office, respon-
sible in turn to the U. S. Office and
to pass on results of research and
experiments in condensed and
disable form to the last family in the
last county.
Here again a difficulty arises. 1t
is rather hard for a county agent to
spread his services out over an entire
county in any satisfactory degree.
This should be an office where ma
terial, information, subject matter,
ETC., is collected and passed out
Where reports are made and results
checked up. In fact just as the state
office is an administrative Office, so,
too, is the county Office an admins
trative office, on a smaller scale. So
far we have not mentioned the fourth
unit-the local communicated here
is the weak spot in the whole scheme.
Here is where we are going to find
the answer to our question, asked at
the beginning of this article, what
is the Natter" Unless our local
community is just as actively organ
lied as any of the four units, extern
sion work is largely in vain as far as
anything permanent is concerned.
We have our county and local pro-
grams of work with our county and
local project leaders. To have any
real results from the work these
local people must function. Why
don't they? Some of them do and
well, too, for an organization as new
as this Lamoille county. No per-
manent organization ever grew up
over night, it takes time. The rea-
sons that all do not function as effec-
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