1. Division of Administration

a. Selection and placement of personnel

b. Supervision and maintenance of financial, personnel, classification and other business procedure, direct appropriations c. Supervision and maintenance of adequate records and accounts on payments to States

d. Preparation of Congressional budget

e. Inspection schedules

2. Division of Field Coordination

a. Development of programs and plans of work

b. Organization and supervision of State and county work
c. Correlation of State and county programs with national
action agencies

d. Studies of effective methods of teaching extension work 3. Division of Subject-Matter

a. Development of material for program building from economic and subject-matter sources

b. Adjustments in farm organization and practices

c. Marketing and marketing agreements

d. Effective use of rural credit

4. Division of Extension Information

a. Coordination and preparation of informational material b. Education by visual aids (photographs, film strips, etc.) c. Preparation and distribution of motion pictures

d. Preparation and distribution of agricultural exhibits

In all, about 60 members of the Federal Service devote their time to extension administration, studies and teaching, and an additional number are engaged in visual instruction and editorial activities. These functions are financed by department funds.

The Federal Extension Service is in administrative control of State and county services through its power of approval and certification for payment from Federal funds. This control is exercised primarily through the device of advance approval of proposed studies, which has been discussed in connection with the provisions of the Adams Act.62 After much consideration, this procedure was adopted by Congress because it promised to be a more effective method than the audit after expenditures were made.63

62 See pp. 30, 34-5.

63 63d Cong., 1st sess. House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture, "Agricultural Extension: H. R. 7951, Commonly Known as the Lever Extension Bill, September 23, 1913," in Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Sixty-Third Congress, First, Second, and Third Sessions (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1915), vol. 2, pp. 769-824.

127403-39-6

As the county is the unit of active extension work, so the agricultural college in the State has become by Federal legislation the active administrative unit. After approval by the Federal authorities, the college supervises the Statecounty programs. The Federal office counsels with the State directors, approves State programs, and coordinates the whole Extension Service within itself and also with the research and administrative functions of the United States Department of Agriculture. The memorandum of understanding between the Federal Department and each agricultural college, drawn up in 1914 and setting forth the policies stated above, has remained in force, unmodified; and no appeal has been made to Congress to rescind any of the regulations made by the Secretary of Agriculture, as provided in the Smith-Lever Act.64

Extension Personnel

The Extension Service, on June 30, 1937, employed 9,150 trained workers, this total being made up of 6,430 county and assistant county extension agents, 1,459 other specialists, 544 State leaders, assistant State leaders, and district agents, 88 State directors and assistant directors, and 629 special committeemen and assistants in the cotton adjustment program. The cotton adjustment workers were emergency agents devoting their time to regulatory work. Of the total of 8,521 regular Extension Service agents, 6,974 were definitely assigned to one of the three fields of extension work. Of these, 4,273 were engaged in the agricultural program, 2,171 in the home economics program, and 530 in 4-H club work. About 2,000 extension workers had headquarters at the agricultural colleges, but the great majority had offices in the counties.65

Average salaries of extension workers as of December 31, 1936, ranged from $5,420 for State directors to $1,299 for Negro county home demonstration agents. Among the county workers, agricultural agents led with an average salary of $2,630. Club agents averaged $2,081, and home demonstration agents, $2,040. (See Table 12.)

64 Smith and Wilson, op. cit., pp. 22-24, 110-1; Landis and Willard, op. cit., p. 69.

65 See U. S. Department of Agriculture, Extension Service, Office of Cooperative Extension Work, Number of Extension Workers, June 30, 1937 (multilithed).

TABLE 12.-Lowest, average, and highest salaries paid cooperative extension workers, December 31, 1936 1

1 Data obtained from Extension Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

The typical county agricultural extension worker is a graduate of an agricultural college. He is mature, and usually has had previous experience as a vocational agriculture teacher or farmer, or has engaged in some commercialized agricultural work. He is farm-born and farm-reared, his interests and sympathies are with farm people, and he understands their needs and problems. He has a strong personality, meets people readily, and is active and energetic as a leader in his county.

The home demonstration and club agents typically fit this same general pattern but are less likely to have the background of practical experience. Home demonstration agents are likely to be home economics graduates, and club agents are usually either agricultural or home economics graduates."

As a group, county extension workers hold the bachelor's degree from agricultural colleges where they have majored in such subject-matter fields as animal husbandry, agronomy, foods and nutrition, or textiles and clothing. Their minor

66 Smith and Wilson, op. cit., pp. 55–7, 66.

work has usually been fairly widely distributed among the other subject fields in agriculture or home economics. Everywhere in the Extension Service the work is considered as teaching, but little, if any, professional training in psychology or education has been a part of the typical extension worker's preparation for his job, except in the case of those workers who come from the ranks of the teachers of vocational agriculture and home economics.

Extension specialists are frequently recruited from the group of successful county extension agents. Their contacts with the teaching and research staff at the agricultural college aid them in keeping abreast of developments in their field, but they, too, have had little or no advanced training for their work. Perhaps the typical graduate program of study offered at the agricultural college does not meet their direct needs, but more training would seem justified and necessary for the positions of leadership they occupy.

The land-grant colleges of only 19 States and Hawaii offer courses dealing with the problems of extension instruction, and only one land-grant institution requires that the course be taken. The course itself in most institutions consists of a history of extension, its administrative and fiscal organization, and, to a minor degree, teaching methods. In about two-fifths of the agricultural institutions mentioned above, the professional course carries three semester hours credit; in another two-fifths, two semester hours; and in onefifth, one semester hour. One agricultural institution gives no academic credit for the professional course. In 1932 the course was taken by 152 students and in 1933 by 52. In the summer of 1937, 9 agricultural institutions offered special graduate courses for extension workers in service.67

In justice to the United States Department of Agriculture it should be stated that the Extension Service has repeatedly urged certain of the land-grant colleges to provide in-service training courses for extension workers and has in many instances aided in the organization of the courses and supplied members of its staff as teachers. This is certainly as

67 Erwin H. Shinn, A Survey of Professional Training Offered at Land-Grant Institutions for Prospective Agricultural Extension Workers, Extension Service Circular No. 218 (mimeographed, August 1935).