Page 105

THE SHORT COURSE
  ANNE ELIZABETH EDWARDS, '16, died   in
November at Muirdale Sanitorium, Wauwatosa.
Miss Edwards was the first woman to receive
the science medal at the University and was
lebeted to Phi Beta Kappa with the highest
average of any student who had graduated up to
1916. Fo1lowine her graduation, Miss Edwards
taught in Madison Central high school from
1916 to 1922. She was made head of the science
department of the East Side high schoolupon its
opening in 1922, and served through the year
1922-1923 when she was overcome by'illness.
Her mother, Mrs. Anna Edwards, 415 W. Wilson
St., Madison, survives.
  DR. SAMUEL PLANTZ, LL.D. '19, president of
Lawrence College, Appleton, since 1894, and a
leading state educator, passed away at Sturgeon
Bay on November 14. Death was due to heart
failure. Dr. Plantz is survived by his wife and
two daughters.
ORIGIN OF SHORT COURSE IN AGRICULTURE
              By DEAN H. L. RUSSELL, '88
W      1)~'..~-~iN±I Wlb- LlLU tIAbL LVui~gUiii
       a new type of agricultural instruc-
Stion. Curiously enough it was not
       proposed by agricultural educators
but by business men. Colonel Vilas and
Judge Keyes, then~regents of the University,
saw the necessity of devising some type of
agricultural education that would meet the
real needs of the farmers of that time. The
agricultural work which was then under the
auspices of the University was confined
mostly to the work of the Experiment Sta-
tion which was oiganized in 1881.
  Colonel Vilas called to his library one
evening Professors Henry and Armsby, who
then made up the entire agricultural faculty
of the University, and laid before- them his
plan of a brief course of instruction that
could be given to farm boys during the win-
ter months. No university up to this time
had ever attempted to take agricultural
students without adequate high school
training for entrance and give them less than
a full collegiate year of instruction for a
period of approximately four years.
  In those days Wisconsin farmers were
struggling to master their financial difficul-
ties. In'the seventies chinch bugs and low
prices for wheat had plunged almost every
farmer into debt. Only here and there a
mui"Uutr.u Lu U1igntt o1 tle kil~liVurl-Zy, iLs
cradle was as in a manger.
  In the winter of 1885 the work was first
given to 19 young men who registered for
the twelve weeks course. The next year
even a smaller number of students appeared
for the work. The growth of the course for
several years was relatively slow. Finally.
Professor Henry secured the services of R.
A. Moore, then superintendent of schools in
Kewaunee County, to take charge of the
course and spend his entire time in present-
ing the merits of this work to the farmers of
the state. Under the stimulus of Moore,
who soon came to be known as the "Daddy
of the Short Course" this course of instruc-
tion developed in a remarkable way. The
character of the work was definitely and
positively practical. The course of instruc-
tion related itself particularly to those
problems that were directly applicable to
Wisconsin- farm conditions. The newly
developed knowledge acquired in the Ex-
periment Station was applied -wherever
possible. Soon the Short Course became
so definitely established that its influence
throughout the state in agricultural de-
velopment became recognized. ;
  Probably there is no single factor in agri-
cultural education which has been fraught
difficulties.7  Their laboý,rl proble-m- _wa~s
largely solved by the work of their own
families. It was, therefore, exceedingly
difficult for the father to allow his son to
leave the farm for any extended period
sufficient to secure a college education.
Colonel Vilas was of the opinion that a
course might be arranged which would be
given during the winter months when farm
work was slack, and which would be open
to all farm boys, regardless of their previous
scholastic qualifications. Such an audacious
educational proposal flew in the face of all
academic tradition. No university had
ever had the temerity to try such a radical
measure. Farmers were apathetic, if not
positively unsympathetic with an effort to
give academic instruction to their sons.
  Vilas and Keyes in their emphatic way
made it obvious to the then existing agri-
cultural staff that such a course should be
tried. Armsby said it would not work.
Henry said it must be tried, or he- and
Armsby would probably lose their jobs, so
the Short Course in Agriculture in Wiscon-
sin was born. Scoffed at by the farmers
themselves, spurned by the academician as
ment and improvement of Wisconsin agri-
culture as has the Short Course. Over six
thousand students have taken this brief
course of winter instruction. By far the
larger number of these students have found
their way back directly on the Wisconsin
farms, which, of course, is not the case with
the higher type of academic instruction.
In this way the state has received directly
the benefit of this training more than from
any other university course.' Ninety per
cent of its graduates are in some phase of
agricultural work and over eighty per cent
are living on Wisconsin farms. The rural
leadership of Wisconsin in a very large
measure is in the hands of the graduates of
this course. In the halls of the legislature,
on the boards of commissions of the state,
in the public service, are frequently found
its graduates. From a twelve weeks winter
course, this course has now grown to thirty
weeks duration, being given for two winters
of fifteen weeks each, and in 1922 a third
winter of optional work was added so that
it is now possible for Wisconsin students to
secure a fairly adequate agricultural educa-
tion during these winter months when farm
operations are at a minimum. (To be cosiid)
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