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 HA.y/iL I N 
 
 USING ALV I DRY COUNCILS 
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 USING ADVISORY COUNCILS 
 IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 
 
 By 
 
 Herbert M. Hamlin 
 Professor of Agricultural Education 
 
 BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 
 BULLETIN No. 63 
 
 Price Thirty-five Cents 
 
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
3000— 7-47— 3S613 orSSSSS 
 
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 1-tL 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The author of this research bulletin has been working with 
 advisory councils in agricultural education for a number of 
 years, and for the past five years has made a rather intensive 
 study of advisory councils in six Illinois communities. This 
 bulletin is partly a report of this study and partly a review 
 of the thought and experience of others who have worked 
 with advisory councils. It is published by the Bureau of 
 Educational Research in accord with its policy of giving 
 through its publications helpful information and suggestions 
 to teachers and school administrators. While this report is 
 primarily concerned with advisory councils in agricultural 
 education, it is believed that it has fruitful suggestions for 
 the development of councils in other areas and in the public 
 schools generally. It is hoped that it will be of interest to 
 members of boards of education, school administrators and 
 teachers, and the general public. The problem of securing 
 more effective working relationships between the school and 
 the public is one that is becoming increasingly important, 
 and the development of advisory councils in agricultural 
 education would appear to hold promising suggestions for 
 the solution of this problem. It should be understood that 
 this bulletin does not represent the work of the Bureau of 
 Educational Research, and full credit for its preparation 
 should be given to the author. 
 
 Walter S. Monroe, Director 
 Bureau of Educational Research 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/usingadvisorycou63haml 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I. Introduction 7 
 
 Chapter II. A Summary of Experience in the Use of 
 
 Advisory Councils 9 
 
 Chapter III. Councils in a Five-Year Project in 
 
 Program- Planning and Evaluation . . 22 
 
 Chapter IV. General Councils for Agricultural 
 
 Departments 30 
 
 Chapter V. Special Councils and Committees for 
 
 Agricultural Departments 55 
 
 Chapter VI. Obstacles and Limitations in the Use of 
 
 Councils 61 
 
 Chapter VII. Councils in Agricultural Education in 
 
 Relation to General School Policies . 66 
 
 Chapter VIII. Summary and Conclusions 71 
 
 Appendix. References on Advisory Councils ... 73 
 

CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 There has been increasing interest in recent years in the use of 
 advisory councils of laymen in connection with the public schools as 
 one means of democratizing educational procedures and of bringing 
 school and community into a closer relationship. Such councils would 
 probably be in wider use if the detailed procedures for their operation 
 and the results of their work were better understood. 
 
 There has been extensive experience in the use of advisory councils 
 in agricultural education which has never been summarized for the 
 workers in that field. Councils for agricultural education have been in 
 use for more than thirty years. Thousands of communities have had 
 experience with them. The entire experience with these councils can 
 not be adequately reviewed in this publication, but a large enough 
 segment of it can be reported so that those who have had no ex- 
 perience with advisory councils may see their possibilities, and those 
 who have used councils in only one or two communities may learn 
 of opportunities they may have missed for making their councils 
 more useful. 
 
 It is believed that the experience in agricultural education in the use 
 of advisory councils may have important implications for other educa- 
 tional fields and for school systems generally. There is no assurance 
 that the same results could be obtained in other areas or that the same 
 procedures would be found workable, but there is a growing body of 
 evidence that advisory councils may be rather widely useful in public 
 education. 
 
 This publication summarizes in a very general way the experience 
 and the literature relative to the use of advisory councils in agricultural 
 education and in other areas of education. It reports a five-year study 
 in six Illinois communities in which the use of advisory councils was an 
 important feature; it reviews the advantages which have been secured 
 from or claimed for advisory councils; and it points out the limitations 
 which should be put on their use, the dangers and difficulties which may 
 be encountered, and the practices which have been found to contribute 
 most to their success. 
 
 Throughout the publication there has been an attempt to keep clear 
 the relationship of advisory councils to the existing machinery of 
 school administration. Councils can exist only as they are authorized 
 
8 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 by communities through their boards of education and their school 
 administrators. Their functions must harmonize with those of other 
 school officials. 
 
 The publication is intended primarily for workers in agricultural 
 education and for school administrators in schools teaching agriculture. 
 It may also be of some interest to members of boards of education, 
 members of advisory councils, teachers of other subjects, and the 
 general public. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A SUMMARY OF EXPERIENCE IN THE USE 
 OF ADVISORY COUNCILS 
 
 COUNCILS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 
 
 Early Developments 
 
 The advisory council is not new in agricultural education. In 
 Massachusetts the use of advisory councils preceded the passage of the 
 "Smith-Hughes Act"; since 1911-1912, or for thirty-five years, every 
 Massachusetts department of vocational agriculture has been required 
 by law to have an advisory committee. 1 
 
 One of the early "advisory boards" in Illinois was described in 
 
 1923 by J. B. Adams, teacher of vocational agriculture at Harvard, 
 
 where the board was in use. 2 Mr. Adams opened his statement with this 
 
 paragraph: 
 
 The idea of having an advisory board for the guidance and assistance of the 
 teacher of vocational agriculture is not new. As yet, however, most vocational de- 
 partments do not have such boards. I think the organization of such a board has 
 done and gives promise of doing more than anything else to insure the firm founda- 
 tion and permanence of the agriculture work in the Harvard Community High 
 School. 
 
 It would be hard, of course, to show the extent to which the ad- 
 visory board contributed to the success and permanence of the depart- 
 ment, but Mr. Adams remained for more than twenty years as the 
 teacher of vocational agriculture at Harvard, and the department of 
 vocational agriculture there is still operating successfully. 
 
 Except for certain changes in the general situation in agricultural 
 education and in terminology, Mr. Adams' statement seems about as 
 timely today as when it was written. Some of the points he made 
 follow: 
 
 As long as vocational agriculture depends for its development upon the indi- 
 vidual efforts of young and inexperienced men who change their locations fre- 
 quently and are sometimes filled with fine enthusiasms that have no firm basis of 
 practicality, so long the problem will remain unsolved, or temporarily solved only 
 by the personality of the right man. Most teachers of vocational agriculture will 
 admit that it is very discouraging to face the covert derision of the adult farmers 
 of a community and that no great progress can be made until the farmers are 
 willing to be neutral, at least. Yet all the work is done in the name of better farm- 
 ing and no one should be so interested as the farmer himself. To be sure, vocational 
 agriculture is winning its way, even in the face of occasional opposition, but the 
 great majority of farmers seem apathetic. 
 
 Being won, the support of the farmer is largely a personal matter. Given a new 
 man, he will stand aside and wait to see what will happen. All the carefully built 
 
 1 Information from Dr. R. W. Stimson, former State Supervisor of Vocational Agricultural 
 Education in Massachusetts. 
 
 3 Adams, J. B. "The Advisory Board," Special Activities in Agricultural Education. 
 Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Board for Vocational Education, Bulletin No. 29, Tune, 1923, 
 pp. 82-85. 
 
10 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 structure of personal loyalties crumbles and a year must be wasted, in one sense, 
 before the organization is really going again. No farmer, unless he happens to be on 
 the school board, feels any personal responsibility. Seldom is there any definite out- 
 line of extension work done or to be done and the new man must feel his way to 
 see what the community needs. Especially if he is from a different community 
 where a different type of agriculture prevails he finds himself at a loss to meet the 
 real needs of the locality. He does not even know what to teach in his classroom, 
 except in a general way. 
 
 How different is the situation when a group of the most progressive and re- 
 spected farmers of the community are willing to give advice and moral support ! 
 They can say better than anyone else what events should regularly come in a 
 yearly program of community service, what forms of personal service the individual 
 farmer should expect from the agriculture department of the school, and what 
 points of practice should be stressed in classroom work. Should we have a short 
 course? Ask the advisory board and be sure that if these men say yes, the prob- 
 lems of support, publicity, attendance, etc., are largely solved already. Should the 
 teacher personally cull farm flocks gratis? Let the board decide. If the farmer is 
 personally concerned in helping, his interest increases tremendously, especially if he 
 feels that he has influence in shaping the course of events. Moreover, if every 
 decision of importance is brought before such a board, some mistaken enthusiasms 
 may be checked before they bear the wrong kind of fruit. . . . 
 
 It is hard to imagine a better way to arrive at mutual understanding and con- 
 fidence and to work together for common ends equally desired. Best of all, when 
 the present teacher goes and a new man comes there will be a settled program to 
 follow and the work already done will have an opportunity to endure. 
 
 Dr. Rufus W. Stimson, State Supervisor of Vocational Agricultural 
 
 Education in Massachusetts, discussed advisory councils in his book, 
 
 Vocational Agricultural Education by Home Projects, written in 1919. 
 
 Referring to the need for cooperation with farmers, he said: 
 
 Of course, we feel that little can be accomplished through the cooperation of 
 educators without the heartiest and closest possible cooperation between them and 
 practical farmers. Wherever there is a department or a school, our law requires 
 that an advisory committee of farmers shall be appointed to advise with and 
 assist the administrative officers and the instructors in charge of this work. 3 
 
 He gave the following specifications 4 for the make-up of advisory 
 committees: 
 
 1. For county schools 2. For high school departments 
 The advisory committee of a school The advisory committee of a depart- 
 generally numbers at least fifteen, in- me nt is made up of the best practical 
 eluding one or two women, of the best farmers, varying from five to fifteen in 
 practical farmers. number, from neighborhoods from 
 
 The plan of one school provides for a which P u P ils are ex P ected - 
 chairman and two other members from The comm i ttee must be composed of 
 each town and city of the county. employers and employees. Each corn- 
 Responsive to the spirit of the times, mittee usually has at least one woman 
 which is bringing farmers and business member, if there is a capable woman 
 men together for the working out of farmer in the vicinity; and often the 
 problems of production and distribution secretary of the committee is a woman. 
 
 s Stimson, Rufus W. Vocational Agricultural Education by Home Projects. New York: 
 Macmillan Co., 1919, p. 183. 
 * Ibid., pp. 189-90. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 11 
 
 of farm products, one school has ap- The superintendent of schools and the 
 
 pointed a supplementary advisory com- special agricultural instructor are ex- 
 
 mittee of business men to cooperate pected to meet with the committee, un- 
 
 with the advisory committee of farmers less requested not to do so on some 
 
 in the management and supervision of particular occasion. 
 
 the farm bureau department. 
 
 The advisory committee members serve 
 
 The director is expected to meet with without pay, and are generally under no 
 
 the advisory committee ; also other mem- expense for travel since they usually 
 
 bers of his staff, when invited to do so. live near the department. 
 
 Advisory committee members serve 
 without pay, but are reimbursed for 
 their necessary travel expenses. 
 
 He listed the duties of advisory committees, whether of county 
 schools or high school departments, as follows: 
 
 1. Formal duties 
 
 a. Organization, officers, committees, minutes 
 
 An advisory committee usually organizes for business with a chairman and a 
 secretary. In some cases, standing committees are appointed, such as com- 
 mittees on dairying, fruit growing, and the like. Record of the attendance at 
 meetings and of the action taken is kept. 
 
 b. Acquaintance with policy and staff of school 
 
 A committee may meet once a month or once in two months. Members may 
 be assigned to visit the school in turn, and to report their impressions of the 
 policy of the school and the efficiency of the individual members of the staff 
 at meetings of the full committee. A director or agricultural instructor may 
 be invited to sit with the whole committee or with a standing committee. The 
 members are busy people and generally without experience in teaching. Per- 
 haps their best service is rendered when directors and instructors take the 
 initiative in pointing out problems confronted and difficulties to be over- 
 come. Committee members are urged to visit and pass judgment upon the 
 home project or other agricultural work of the pupils. 
 
 c. No reports or recommendations are official until voted by a majority and 
 transmitted in writing by the secretary to the trustees or school committee in 
 charge. 
 
 2. Informal duties 
 
 a. Friendly consultation with the instructors and controlling board 
 
 b. Making favorably known the work and aims of the school or department. 5 
 In another section of the book a photograph is presented of three 
 
 members of an advisory council with the local teacher and the state 
 
 supervisor taken while they were on a tour of the pupils' homes. 
 
 Included in the caption is this statement: 
 
 Home projects of 16 pupils visited in an afternoon, with full opportunity to stop at 
 quiet spots on road and talk over what has just been seen or what is about to be 
 seen. Instructors thus learn from farmers, and farmers from instructors. 8 
 
 Dr. C. V. Williams of Kansas State College wrote as follows in 
 1923 regarding the use of "advisory committees": 
 
 The work of a vocational agriculture department in a community should be 
 placed in the hands of an advisory committee of farmers, businessmen, and home- 
 
 5 Ibid., pp. 190-91. 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 313. 
 
12 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 keepers of the community. We have never made it a rigid requirement in Kansas 
 that a vocational agriculture teacher must create an advisory committee in organiz- 
 ing a department in a community, but have always urged it upon the teacher. It has 
 never been tried out and discontinued at any point. It has always proved, where 
 properly managed, to be a successful venture and it grows in importance as the 
 work becomes older in the community. . . . No hard and fast lines can be drawn 
 as to who should make up this committee other than that it should represent all 
 the influences of the community. . . . Such a committee will afford both the voca- 
 tional agriculture teacher and the superintendent of schools a place where any plans 
 which may be made at any time in the development of the vocational agriculture 
 work may be presented for consideration and which might come up later through 
 suggestions which are made in its open meetings. When once the council has 
 approved the program, it becomes theirs and they go out into the community and 
 urge its acceptance and stand sponsor for any community work which the voca- 
 tional teacher or his boys may enter into in carrying on the approved program. No 
 negative results have ever been secured by any school in our state in the wise use 
 of the advisory committee.' 
 
 The author of the present monograph commented similarly in 1923: 
 
 Through the advisory committee, representative of a whole community, a 
 program is laid out which is the community's and not merely the instructor's. . . . 
 In consolidated school districts, the boards of education consist mainly of farmers 
 and can, if they will, serve the purpose. Even there, a special board is usually de- 
 sirable since the school board members must devote all of the time they can spare 
 to general school affairs. When departments are located in towns, with typical 
 school boards of business and professional men, with superintendents unfamiliar 
 with vocational work, and with agricultural teachers just out of college, it is 
 almost hopeless to expect vocational agriculture to succeed. 8 
 
 However, in spite of the early successful use of advisory groups 
 and of their continued use for a generation in limited areas of the 
 country, general advisory councils for agricultural education in a com- 
 munity have not been widely used. There has been very little discussion 
 of them in professional meetings or in professional publications. New 
 teachers have not been trained to use them. Detailed procedures for 
 working with advisory groups have not, until recently, been worked out. 
 
 Why has a device which seemed so promising a quarter of a century 
 ago not come into general use? Why has so little attention been given 
 to the special procedures involved in using advisory councils ? One can 
 only guess at some of the reasons: 
 
 (1) Advisor)-' councils for other departments of our schools have 
 not been in general use, and school boards and school administrators 
 have often thought they were not necessary for agricultural depart- 
 ments. 
 
 (2) Teachers of agriculture are often independent and self-reliant. 
 Many of them may have believed that councils would restrict their 
 
 ' Williams, C. V. "Relation of the Teacher of Vocational Agriculture to His Community," 
 Vocational Education Magazine, 1:412-416, February, 1923. Dr. Williams was the agent of the 
 Federal Hoard for Vocational Education in the West Central Region of the United States from 
 July. 1018, to June, 1920. 
 
 8 Hamlin, H. M. "Some Illustrations of Effective Use of Farms and Farmers in Teaching 
 Agriculture," Vocational Education Magazine, 1:339-341, January, 1923. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 13 
 
 independence or lead them in directions in which they did not wish to 
 go. Some may have felt that the use of advisory councils would belittle 
 their own abilities or indicate weaknesses in their own leadership. 
 
 (3) Our schools have been autocratic institutions. Administrators 
 and teachers have been the "bosses." Other democratic procedures have 
 fared no better than advisory councils during the past twenty-five years. 
 
 (4) During the same period, laymen have been taught to "keep in 
 their places." Educational theory has often favored the management 
 of schools by professionally trained teachers and administrators with- 
 out lay interference. 
 
 (5) Many schools have remained aloof from their communities and 
 have made no great effort to adjust their programs to community needs. 
 These tendencies have been furthered by college and university entrance 
 requirements and by increased state supervision of schools. Both the 
 colleges and the state authorities have tended to emphasize general 
 requirements rather than the requirements of particular communities. 
 
 (6) Since the education offered in the schools had little relationship 
 to the lives and experiences of people outside the schools, laymen often 
 agreed with school men that they had little to contribute in discussions 
 of school policies. Education was accepted as a magic ritual performed 
 in schoolhouses, the results of which would surely be beneficial though 
 no one was quite sure how or why. A large part of the adult population, 
 who had never undergone the ritual, accepted the imputation of their 
 inferiority, sent their children to school, and remained aloof from 
 school affairs. 
 
 In general, then, the "climate" has not been one in which we 
 would expect advisory councils to thrive. They fared better in agri- 
 cultural education than in many other forms of education because some 
 of the adverse conditions enumerated were not present in that field. 
 Agriculture was a practical, functional subject if it was of any use at 
 all. Farmers felt competent to judge its results. Teachers soon found 
 that the teaching of agriculture could not be standardized but that it 
 had to be adapted to the localities served. When they began to teach 
 adult farmers, they found that they must work democratically with 
 them. In spite of these special conditions in their own field, teachers of 
 agriculture worked under conditions not conducive to the use of ad- 
 visory councils or other devices of democratic education. 
 
 It seems, however, that conditions are changing. We hear much 
 talk and see some action leading toward more democratic school pro- 
 cedures. The essence of democracy in education, as the author sees it, 
 is that those affected by policies shall have a share in making them, 
 either directly or through their chosen representatives. The advisory 
 
14 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 council, as used in agricultural education, is only one small step toward 
 allowing those affected to share in policy making. It is a device of 
 representative, rather than of pure, democracy, in that council members 
 are chosen by boards of education who, in turn, are chosen by the adult 
 members of a community. It does not provide for direct participation 
 by adults generally, and it often excludes from participation the high 
 school pupils who are commonly affected, more than any other group, 
 by policies in agricultural education. However, using advisory councils 
 is one way of making our schools more democratic, and it is often 
 feasible to take this important step. 
 
 There have been recent attempts also to develop "community 
 schools." In a sense, every American school is or could be a community 
 school, since control of education is largely local. Often, however, this 
 control has drifted in large measure to professional school people or to 
 persons outside a community who have taken advantage of the indiffer- 
 ence of local people to their rights and responsibilities. A true 
 community school implies (1) a maximum of community control; 
 (2) management of the school to serve the whole community without 
 discrimination against anyone because of age, sex, color, economic con- 
 dition, or any other reason; (3) participation in the making of school 
 policies by all who are affected by them; (4) a program based on com- 
 munity needs, recognizing that a major community need is to become 
 adapted to the state, the nation, and the world. 
 
 In schools of this type we can expect that advisory councils for agri- 
 cultural education will be welcomed. There has been a growing appre- 
 ciation too on the part of school administrators that the public relations 
 program of a school does not merely consist of telling the people what 
 a fine school they have and how much more money is required to keep 
 it that way. "Two-way" public relations programs have become much 
 more common, in which laymen tell the school people what they want 
 and expect from the schools, and school men tell laymen what they are 
 trying to do and what they need. More pleasant relations and more 
 adequate school facilities seem to result from this two-way arrangement. 
 Councils in agricultural education fit well into this pattern. 
 
 Rise of Councils for Adult Classes in Agriculture 
 
 The modern movement toward the use of advisory councils in agri- 
 cultural education traces directly to their use in connection with evening 
 schools for farmers rather than to the early use of general councils for 
 agricultural departments. 
 
 For a generation teachers of agriculture had tried sporadically to 
 conduct evening classes. Sometimes these evening classes were very 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 15 
 
 successful. Often they could not be started at all or they died out after 
 a brief period. In the early part of the decade 1930 to 1940, advisory 
 councils came to be widely used in connection with evening schools 
 because it was found that, by using them, farmers would take much 
 more interest in evening schools, assist in recruiting members, help in 
 planning courses, support the teacher in his work, and contribute to the 
 evaluation of outcomes. 9 
 
 A rapid rise in the evening school enrollments was concurrent in 
 some states with the use of advisory councils, and, in the minds of 
 many people, the work of the councils was a principal cause con- 
 tributing to increased enrollments. Varied types of special councils for 
 adult work have developed: 
 
 (1) A council for each class of older adults. 
 
 (2) A council for each class of young farmers. 
 
 (3) A neighborhood council for conducting an adult class in one 
 part of a community. 
 
 (4) A council of farm veterans made up of members of a veterans' 
 class or of representatives from several veterans' classes. 
 
 (5) A county or community council of farmers to advise regarding 
 the teaching of farm veterans. 
 
 (6) A general council for adult education in agriculture in a com- 
 munity. 
 
 (7) A general council for adult education of all kinds in a com- 
 munity. 
 
 Other Types of Agricultural Education Councils 
 
 In addition to departmental councils and councils for adult work, 
 teachers of agriculture have used advisory councils for the high school 
 program of agricultural education and for chapters of the Future 
 Farmers of America. Advisory councils of the parents of high school 
 pupils have occasionally been employed. 
 
 Current Use of Councils by Illinois Teachers 
 
 of Vocational Agriculture 
 
 In September, 1946, Marshall J. Scott, teacher of vocational agri- 
 culture at Fisher, Illinois, sent inquiries regarding the use of councils 
 to 300 Illinois teachers who had been teaching vocational agriculture in 
 the state in 1946. 10 He received 149 replies. Sixty-six teachers reported 
 success in the use of one or more councils; thirty-five teachers reported 
 
 9 Dalbey, C. W. "The Advisory Council : Key to Success with Adult Classes," Agricultural 
 Education Magazine, 13:68, 99, October, 1940. 
 
 10 Unpublished study to be reported more fully by Mr. Scott. 
 
16 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 partial success with one or more councils; two had tried to use councils 
 and considered that they had failed. Forty-two reported that they had 
 had no experience with councils. The sixty-six teachers reporting suc- 
 cess in the use of councils had used successfully 116 councils, divided 
 among various types as follows: 
 
 Evening school councils 41 
 
 Veterans' councils 30 
 
 F.F.A. councils 15 
 
 Departmental (general) councils 14 
 
 Councils for young-farmers' classes 6 
 
 Councils for all-day program 4 
 
 Other councils 6 
 
 These sixty-six teachers reported that they had used additionally, with 
 only partial success, 24 other councils: 6 general councils, 6 veterans' 
 councils, 5 evening school councils, 4 young- farmers' councils, 2 all-day 
 school councils, and 1 F.F.A. council. One teacher reported using a 
 general council without success. 
 
 In the summer of 1946, Lloyd J. Phipps, while surveying the status 
 of supervised practice in vocational agriculture in Illinois, received in- 
 formation from 285 teachers of vocational agriculture regarding their 
 use of advisory councils in connection with supervised practice. Of 
 these teachers, 198 — almost 70 per cent of those reporting — said that 
 they had no departmental advisory councils. Probably many of these 
 teachers had councils for adult work but did not think of these councils 
 as having responsibilities in connection with supervised practice for 
 adults. The 87 teachers with departmental councils indicated their 
 value for supervised practice as follows: very important, 42; above 
 average importance, 29; average importance, 12; some importance, 4. 
 
 Current Use of Agricultural Councils in Other States 
 
 Marshall J. Scott has recently completed an unpublished study of 
 the use of agricultural councils in the nation. His report, based on in- 
 formation from state supervisors of agricultural education, indicated 
 that councils are widely used and that there is increasing interest in 
 them. The states of Massachusetts and North Carolina require a council 
 for each department of agriculture. Indiana has long required that a 
 council be set up before a department is approved, but indefinite con- 
 tinuation of the council is not required. 
 
 Two studies completed in the summer of 1947 have dealt with the 
 use of advisory councils in Ohio 11 and Michigan. 12 
 
 11 Stuckey, Wilbur E. An Investigation of the Use of Advisory Councils for Vocational 
 Agriculture in Ohio. Master's Thesis, Ohio State University, 1947. 
 
 12 Schroeder, Walter. A Case Study of the Development and Evaluation of a Program 
 of Agricultural Improvement for Adults in the Olivet Community. Master's Thesis, Michigan 
 State College, 1947, 185 pp. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 17 
 
 Recognizing the growing national interest in advisory councils for 
 agricultural departments, the United States Office of Education re- 
 leased in March, 1947, an eight-page mimeograph summarizing the ad- 
 vantages to be gained from councils, the procedures used in establishing 
 and conducting them, and the precautions to be observed in making 
 them successful. 13 
 
 COUNCILS IN OTHER AREAS OF EDUCATION 
 
 Concurrent with the development of advisory councils in agricultural 
 education, there has been considerable use of councils in other areas of 
 vocational education, in other areas of adult education, and as advisers 
 to boards of education. Community councils of various types have often 
 taken an interest in the schools and have advised boards of education. 
 
 Vocational Education Councils 
 
 Advisory councils have probably been used more generally in trade 
 and industrial education than in any other area. It is commonly expected 
 by state and national officials that the schools will provide advisory 
 councils for this type of education, which are made up of persons from 
 labor, management, and the public. Procedures for their use have been 
 well developed. 14 While the federal war-training program was in prog- 
 ress, each school participating in the industrial phases of the program 
 was required to have an advisory council. Apprentice training councils 
 have also been extensively used in trade and industrial education. Some 
 use has also been made of councils in business education. 15 
 
 An alternative to the advisory council for vocational education has 
 long been employed in Wisconsin, where separate boards for vocational 
 education have been set up in many cities which have vocational schools. 
 These vocational education boards have separate budgets, buildings, 
 equipment, and staffs, but their actions are subject to review by the city 
 boards of education. 
 
 Adult Education Councils 
 
 Councils for city-wide programs of adult education have long been 
 used, often for programs conducted entirely outside the city schools. 
 The Chicago Council of Adult Education has been in operation for 
 more than fifty years. Commonly these councils have consisted of out- 
 
 13 The Advisory Council for a Department of Vocational Agriculture. Washington, D. C. : 
 Agricultural Education Service, U. S. Office of Education, C.L. 2617, 1947, 8 pp. 
 
 14 Organization and Function of Representative Advisory Committees for Trade and Indus- 
 trial Education. Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State Board of Control for Vocational Education, 
 1940, 16 pp. 
 
 15 Black, S. C, Jr. "Advisory Committees and Their Function in Building Business Edu- 
 cation Programs," National Business Education Quarterly, 14:49-50, March, 1946. 
 
18 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 standing leaders in a city who were concerned about education for other 
 adults but were not themselves active participants in adult education 
 activities. In this respect, adult education councils are in marked con- 
 trast with the councils for adult farmers' classes. One of the earliest 
 lessons learned by teachers of farmers was that council members are 
 useful as long as they participate actively in the classes for which they 
 are providing counsel. The best council members were found to be those 
 most representative of the class members they served. Classes for 
 young farmers are not well served by councils of older farmers. 
 Veterans' classes do not welcome councils of non-veterans. Small 
 farmers of limited education want persons like themselves to represent 
 them; they are little influenced by college graduates who operate large 
 acreages. 
 
 The most complete statement about councils in adult education was 
 published by the American Association for Adult Education in 1940. 16 
 A directory of adult education councils has also been published by that 
 Association. 17 
 
 The Iowa State Department of Public Instruction has recently 
 issued a very helpful statement regarding the use of advisory councils 
 based on extensive experience with councils of this type in the state. 18 
 
 Councils Advisory to Boards of Education 
 
 In recent years committees advisory to boards of education have 
 been set up in certain communities. Campbell has reported the use of 
 such councils at Fisher and Salem, Illinois. 19 Rogers has written of a 
 council at River Forest, Illinois. 20 Godwin is another recent advocate 
 of advisory councils for school systems. 21 Grieder has cited the use of 
 such groups in English communities. 22 Quotations from recent articles 
 by Leonard and Grieder, which follow, show the general trend of the 
 discussions of advisory councils for school systems and boards of 
 education. 
 
 President J. Paul Leonard of the San Francisco State College has 
 
 recently written as follows: 
 
 Interested and competent citizens in the community must aid in the planning 
 of the secondary school program. Too long we have devoted our major attention 
 
 16 Kotinsky, Ruth. Adult Education Councils. New York: American Association for Adult 
 Education, 1940, 172 pp. 
 
 ""Directory of Councils," Adult Education Journal, 4:21-23, January, 1945. 
 
 18 Adult Education Handbook for Iowa Schools. Des Moines, Iowa: Iowa State Depart- 
 ment of Public Instruction, 1947, 22 pp. 
 
 19 Campbell, C. M. "Illinois Communities Set Up Advisory Boards," School Executive, 
 65:52-53, May, 1946. 
 
 20 Rogers, Virgil M. "Educational Advisory Council Helps," American School Board 
 Journal, 111:34, July, 1945. 
 
 21 Godwin, W. R. "Useful Technic in Democratic Procedure," American School Board 
 Journal, 111:28-29, November, 1945. 
 
 "Grieder, Calvin. "Citizens' Advisory Committees — Have They a Rightful Place?" 
 Nation's Schools, 28:29-30, September, 1941. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 19 
 
 to educating our own profession and then "selling" the public. Education in and out 
 of the school can be vastly improved through citizens' committees for planning the 
 policies and general program areas of the school and for considering ways of 
 coordinating all activities." 
 
 Grieder has dealt with some of the common objections to the use of 
 advisory councils. Here are some of his answers to questions frequently- 
 raised: 
 
 (1) Does the board of education serve the purpose an advisory 
 
 council would serve ? 
 
 No divine revelation is conferred upon school board members at their induc- 
 tion into office. While they may, in general, be regarded as a competent group, they 
 should welcome, nevertheless, the counsel of especially interested and qualified 
 persons who for one reason or another are not members of the board. There can 
 never be a surfeit of good ideas. 24 
 
 (2) Would boards be under obligation to accept advice? Would the 
 
 profession of educational administration be debased to the status of an 
 
 unpaid occupation for amateurs? 
 
 It must be distinctly understood that the advisory committee would have 
 advisory powers only. Its members would have no vote in matters of board jurisdic- 
 tion and would hold office at the will of the board, perhaps on an annual appoint- 
 ment or upon special call. The board of education would abdicate not one whit 
 from its position of authority and responsibility. None of the advisory com- 
 mittee's recommendations would be binding upon the board of education. 24 
 
 (3) Would the advisory committee members become meddlers? 
 
 Would the wrong people be appointed who would sabotage the board's 
 
 program for personal reasons ? 
 
 It is quite possible that the evils mentioned may develop, but it is equally 
 certain that they are not inherent in the plan. 24 
 
 (4) Would not superintendents and boards of education pack the 
 council with "yes men"? 
 
 Almost certainly an unhealthful reaction would be observed if school authori- 
 ties sought, under the guise of promoting advisory service, to cultivate a favorable 
 pressure group or lobby. The temptation to pack the advisory council would quite 
 probably be present all of the time and extremely compelling some of the time. 
 . . . There is no need to feel that advisers should represent only the interests 
 that are favorable to the preservation of the school system in status quo. 24 
 
 (5) Does the Parent-Teacher Association adequately represent lay- 
 men in school affairs ? 
 
 The advisory committee proposed in this paper would have quasi-official 
 standing. It would be more effective than the Parent-Teacher Association and hand- 
 picked for a special purpose. 24 
 
 Community Councils 
 
 Various kinds of community councils, organized independently of 
 boards of education, have studied the educational problems of their 
 
 23 Leonard, J. Paul. "Characteristics of the Secondary School for a Nation at Peace," 
 School Executive, 63:34-35, July, 1944. 
 
 24 Grieder, op. cit., p. 30. 
 
20 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 communities, sometimes in close cooperation with boards of education. 
 An excellent example of the successful operation of a community 
 council in improving school conditions has recently been provided at 
 Decatur, Illinois, where the council has worked in cooperation with the 
 school administration and the board of education. 
 
 Often these councils are "coordinating councils" made up of repre- 
 sentatives of many organizations in a community. Their primary func- 
 tion as such is to secure cooperation among these agencies in programs 
 of community improvement. There are four major objections to 
 councils of this type as substitutes for advisory councils which are a 
 part of the official machinery of the school: 
 
 (1) They are independent of the board of education. The board 
 may have no part in selecting them. They may operate as pressure 
 groups rather than as advisory groups. 
 
 (2) They are usually not chosen primarily because of their interest 
 in education or their qualifications to advise about the schools. They 
 may not be the best persons who could be selected in a community for 
 an educational advisory council. Because these councils often have 
 many concerns, they may not have as much time for the schools as is 
 needed. 
 
 (3) They are usually not representative of the entire community, 
 but only of some of the more aggressive groups in the community. 
 
 (4) Since each member of this type of council is chosen by an 
 organization and is responsible to that organization, he may be chiefly 
 concerned with furthering that organization's program. Conflicts 
 among organizational representatives are common, sometimes because 
 the members of organizations have not heard matters discussed from 
 all points of view and so instruct their representatives to act in a par- 
 ticular way at council meetings. 
 
 There is probably a place for community coordinating councils, but 
 they should not be considered as substitutes for school advisory coun- 
 cils. In fact, it might be desirable in some cases for a board of educa- 
 tion to set up an advisory council as a buffer against the unreasonable 
 demands which some community councils may make. 
 
 Earl H. Hanson, Superintendent of Schools at Rock Island, Illinois, 
 
 has warned against the dangers of this kind of council: 
 
 We occasionally hear proposals to set up in local communities organized dis- 
 cussion groups to advise with local boards of education. I fear there is danger in 
 this proposal. If such an organization survives the trials of newness and really 
 becomes established, it will exercise tremendous power, become a local pressure 
 bloc. It would not be responsible to the voters in any way and, consequently, might 
 become quite irresponsible and selfish. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 21 
 
 Those interested in such groups recognize this danger and usually propose that 
 membership be distributed to practically all the community's groups. However, 
 there is a probability that many of the groups, largely composed of the less gifted 
 population elements, will soon lose interest (they usually do in a community enter- 
 prise) and that a few dynamic leaders will take possession of the machine and run 
 a petty dictatorship. Even if it does not become an ax-grinding organization, there 
 is danger that the legally elected board of education will eventually rest too 
 strongly upon it and abdicate its own responsibilities. When boards do so abdicate, 
 the schools soon face trouble. . . . 
 
 There is a proper place for a community organization which will serve as a 
 clearing house for community agencies, but it should not revolve only about one 
 phase of life. It should, instead, be concerned with all, perhaps be in the center 
 of all, but not definitely allied to any one. Education is a tremendously important 
 community enterprise, but it isn't the only one. 23 
 
 Mr. Hanson has accepted the suggestion of the writer, in an article 
 following his, that the dangers of which he warns can largely be 
 averted, while securing the benefits desired, by substituting officially 
 appointed advisory councils for councils and discussion (or pressure) 
 groups organized independently of school boards. 26 
 
 =3 Hanson, Earl H. "Should Non-Elected Lay Advisory Groups Organize About the 
 School Boards?" American School Board Journal, 109:23-24, October, 1944. 
 
 26 Hamlin, Herbert M. "Safeguards in the Use of Advisory Councils," American School 
 Board Journal, 110:31-32, May, 1945. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 COUNCILS IN A FIVE-YEAR PROJECT IN PROGRAM- 
 PLANNING AND EVALUATION 
 
 In 1941 the Agricultural Education staff of the University of Illinois 
 set up, in cooperation with six Illinois schools, a project in program- 
 planning and evaluation in agricultural education. A central feature of 
 this project was the recommended use of a general (departmental) 
 council in each school. On the basis of prior experience with councils, 
 the following recommendations were made in the original outline of 
 the project: 
 
 a. A general council is needed to advise with respect to the entire program of 
 the agricultural department of the school. 
 
 b. The council members may be nominated by the teacher of agriculture and 
 the principal; they should be chosen by the board of education and should be 
 responsible to the board. At least one board member should serve on the advisory 
 council. 
 
 c. Council members should be the most competent men available who can 
 really represent all the people in the community who are concerned with agricultural 
 education. They should include persons well distributed geographically, tenants and 
 owners, members of various farmers' organizations, persons of various ages, and 
 persons able to reflect the viewpoints of every community group. While it seems 
 advisable to have the council made up mainly of farmers, it is often desirable to 
 have at least one person from town. A farm woman might well be included. 
 
 d. The principal and the teacher of agriculture should be expected to attend 
 each council meeting. A meeting of the council with the board of education should 
 be provided at least once annually. Meetings may be held occasionally with the 
 part-time and evening school advisory councils and with the executive committee 
 of the F.F.A. The farm adviser may be invited in occasionally. A supplementary 
 advisory committee of town men may be consulted occasionally. Representatives 
 
 . of other groups and agencies may be met systematically. 
 
 e. The council should be aware that its functions are advisory. Its relationships 
 to the board of education and to the principal should be worked out clearly at the 
 beginning. 
 
 f. The council can be expected to concern itself mainly with studying com- 
 munity needs, stating the objectives of agricultural education for the community, 
 and evaluating progress. It may pass in general on the ways and means proposed 
 for attaining objectives or, if requested, may react to some detailed procedure if 
 there is some question as to the community's reaction to it. 
 
 g. If a council is to be effective for the purposes of this project, it should meet 
 at least six times a year. Members should be chosen who see the possibilities of the 
 project and who are willing to give considerable time to it. The teacher and prin- 
 cipal can determine the probable attitudes of prospective council members before 
 nominating them for membership in the council. 
 
 Provision was made in the beginning for terms of three years for 
 council members. To set up a rotation of terms the original members 
 were assigned by lot to terms of one, two, and three years. All but one 
 of the councils started with nine members, so that usually three mem- 
 bers were chosen for one year, three members for two years, and three 
 members for three years. 
 
 22 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 23 
 
 Developments by Communities 
 
 The activities of the six participating councils have varied con- 
 siderably. 
 
 The Amboy council has continued as a nine-man organization but 
 with an average of only about four meetings a year. In its first year 
 the council arranged for evening classes in four parts of the community. 
 Members of the general council served as chairmen of neighborhood 
 evening school councils, and most of the work of the council has been 
 done through these subsidiary groups. 
 
 The Bethany council has been relatively inactive since the first year. 
 
 The Fairfield council was changed from a seven-man to a nine-man 
 council at the end of the first year and was otherwise reorganized. It 
 sponsored a very extensive program of adult education during its 
 second year. At the close of the second year Fairfield withdrew from 
 the project. 
 
 At the end of the first year the Fisher council decided that all of 
 the original members should be retained for another year and that three 
 more men should be added, enlarging the council to twelve members. 
 At the end of the second year a rotation of terms began, and four 
 members have been retired annually since that time. The Fisher council 
 has been very active continuously during the six years since it was 
 started. Its regular meetings are held monthly throughout the year, and 
 special meetings are sometimes added. The council has attracted a very 
 high type of membership, and council members have developed in 
 ability during their periods of service. The council has a record of 
 unusual service to the Fisher school and community, and its work has 
 become widely known. 
 
 Newton started with a nine-man council. In its first year the Xewton 
 council gave its primary attention to the provision of an evening 
 school, which proved very successful. At the end of the first year 
 regular council meetings were discontinued because of the war and 
 gasoline rationing, but the instructor continued to seek advice from the 
 individual council members. Much of the work the council had hitherto 
 done was turned over to neighborhood evening school councils. In one 
 year twenty of these councils were in operation. In the fall of 1946, a 
 general council was restored on much the same basis as the first council. 
 
 The Noble council functioned effectively for a year, particularly in 
 studying the community, setting the principal goals of agricultural 
 education in the community, and conducting classes for adults. After 
 losing three teachers, the department was temporarily abandoned. 
 Work in the department was resumed in the fall of 1946. 
 
24 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 This resume of the histories of six councils suggests that much 
 might have been learned from their successes and failures. The recom- 
 mendations in a later section as to the make-up and management of 
 councils are based to a considerable extent on the experience of these 
 six groups. 
 
 Council Personnel 
 
 The ages and years of schooling of the members of five of the 
 original councils are shown in Table I. 
 
 Table I 
 
 Ages and Years of Schooling of 43 Members of 
 Five Councils Selected in 1941 
 
 Ages Years of Schooling 
 
 Median Range Median Range 
 
 Amboy 45 34-59 10 8-16 
 
 Bethany 44 20-57 12 4-12 
 
 Fairfield 48 39-69 12 6-16 
 
 Fisher 42 19-55 12 8-15 
 
 Newton 38 17-55 10 8-12 
 
 Eighty-one per cent of these original council members whose affilia- 
 tions were reported were members of the Farm Bureau. At least one 
 school board member was included in each council. Two councils 
 included the presidents of the local F.F.A. chapters. There was usually 
 one town man on each council. Two councils included the chairmen of 
 evening school councils, and one included the chairman of a part-time 
 school council. Only one woman was chosen for council membership. 
 
 There was a general tendency to settle on councils of nine to twelve 
 members. It was usually found that the first councils chosen were in 
 some respects unrepresentative of the communities; deficiencies were 
 corrected by adding members or by replacing members when their terms 
 expired. 
 
 The possible inconsistency of asking school board members to 
 serve on councils advisory to school boards was noted, and the recom- 
 mendation was changed to provide for one or more board members to 
 sit with each council but not as council members. 
 
 The Fisher council, the most active and successful of the group of 
 councils, is now made up of members whose ages are 23, 30, 33, 34, 38, 
 38, 41, 47, 50, 50, 52, and 60. The median age of council members at 
 Fisher is now approximately 39; in 1941 it was 42. Ten of the twelve 
 members in 1946-1947 are farmers. One is a banker with farming 
 interests and one is the manager of a cooperative elevator. One of the 
 farmers is president of the board of education and another farmer is a 
 board member. Two of the farmers are veterans; one of these holds 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 25 
 
 the degree of "American Farmer" in the Future Farmers of America; 
 the other is a farm hand. 
 
 Council Activities 
 
 In the first year the councils in the project in program-planning and 
 evaluation engaged in such activities as the following: 1 (1) becoming 
 familiar with their duties as council members; (2) determining the 
 status of the school's current program of agricultural education; 
 
 (3) studying the community agricultural situation and suggesting im- 
 provements which should be encouraged by the agricultural department; 
 
 (4) initiating or extending adult education; (5) working out improved 
 relationships between the school and other agencies concerned with 
 agriculture and agricultural education; (6) adjusting the school pro- 
 gram of agricultural education to the situation caused by the beginning 
 of the war; (7) planning a program for the coming year; (8) consid- 
 ering means of evaluating progress toward the objectives they had 
 chosen. 
 
 In later years the councils added such functions as the following: 
 (1) planning the adaptation of the agricultural education program to 
 returning veterans; (2) initiating consideration of community agricul- 
 tural fairs; (3) reviewing the agricultural curriculum of the high 
 school; (4) encouraging supervised practice for high school boys; 
 
 (5) conferring with the officers of the F.F.A. and otherwise assisting 
 the F.F.A. chapter; (6) working with soil conservation districts in 
 joint educational programs; (7) studying the health, sanitary condi- 
 tions, and causes of accidents among rural people; (8) encouraging the 
 development of sow-testing and cow-testing. 
 
 Some Council Accomplishments 
 
 Space does not permit a full report here of the accomplishments of 
 the advisory councils in the project in program-planning and evaluation. 
 A final report of this project will appear as a separate publication. 
 Some examples of accomplishments in the two communities where 
 councils functioned best — Fisher and Newton — follow. 
 
 Fisher. In the Fisher community the agricultural department of 
 the school and the advisory council had an important part in developing 
 educational programs related to sow-testing, cow-testing, and soil 
 conservation. 
 
 When the council was first organized in 1941, it became concerned 
 with the improvement of methods of pork production in the community. 
 Grain- farming was principally practiced; not many hogs were kept; 
 
 1 The minutes of the meetings of the council at Fisher, Illinois, during its first year are 
 available from the Agricultural Education Office, University of Illinois. 
 
26 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 and the results some farmers were securing with hogs were so dis- 
 couraging that a number of them were going out of swine production. 
 The council sponsored a community-wide survey of pork production 
 in 1942 and found that the average production of pork per sow (180- 
 day litter weights) was about 1,000 pounds. This indicated that about 
 one-half of the farmers were producing pork unprofitably. The survey 
 also indicated that good pork production practices were not in general 
 use. There was especial neglect of swine sanitation practices which 
 resulted in high mortality and much unthriftiness in the pigs. An eve- 
 ning school in pork production was conducted by a member of the 
 council in the winter of 1942-1943. This led to the establishment of a 
 swine improvement association. The council member who had taught 
 the pork production course was the first tester for the association, and 
 he has continued in charge of testing and records. Material gains in 
 production of pork per sow have been recorded by the members of the 
 association. Fisher is now rather widely known as a source of produc- 
 tion-tested breeding stock. In February, 1947, a state association of 
 sow-testing associations was formed in which the Fisher association has 
 an important part, and the council member who has served the Fisher 
 people as a teacher of pork production and as sow-tester and record- 
 keeper was chosen president of the state organization. 
 
 Memberships and average litter weights in the Fisher Swine Im- 
 provement Association, together with data from individual herds in- 
 cluded in the Association, are shown in the following tables, prepared 
 from data furnished by Leslie E. Heiser, Secretary of the Association. 
 
 Table II 
 
 Membership and Average Weights of Litters in Fisher 
 Swine Improvement Association, 1943-1946 
 
 Average Weight of 
 Litters at 56 Days 
 Year Membership of Age (lbs.) 
 
 1943 17 187 
 
 1944 20 171 
 
 1945 16 220 
 
 1946 25 205 
 
 Improvements in litter weights in one herd which has shown large 
 gains are given in Table III. 
 
 Table III 
 
 Sows Kept and Average Weights of Their Litters in 
 One Herd in the Fisher Swine Improve- 
 ment Association, 1943-1946 
 
 Average Weight of 
 Litters at 56 Days 
 Year Sows Kept of Age (lbs.) 
 
 1943 37 82 
 
 1944 37 183 
 
 1945 28 244 
 
 1946 46 185 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 27 
 
 Another herd which has been represented in the Association during 
 the past three years has maintained litter weights which have been 
 continuously high. In the three years, 1944, 1945, and 1946, the number 
 of sows kept were 18, 12, and 16, while the average litter weights at 
 56 days were 276 lbs., 228 lbs., and 281 lbs. 
 
 Early in the life of the Fisher council the members turned their 
 attention to the situation in dairying. There was little dairying except 
 in one section of the community, but it was recognized that some people 
 were finding it quite profitable. In the same winter in which the pork 
 production course was taught (1942-1943) a course in dairying was 
 conducted with another council member as the teacher. The members 
 of the class became interested in starting organized herd-testing. Since 
 there were not enough herds available for a full-scale dairy herd im- 
 provement association, and since herd-testers were extremely difficult 
 to secure in wartime, the high school F.F.A. agreed to do the testing 
 and record-keeping temporarily. Under this arrangement as many as 
 200 cows were on test at one time. Early in 1945, it became possible to 
 employ a full-time herd-tester, and a dairy herd improvement associa- 
 tion was formed in the community. The F.F.A. still continues cow- 
 testing on a small scale for persons whose herds are too small to be 
 included in the association. 
 
 There had been little interest in soil conservation in the community. 
 The soil is perhaps as fertile as any to be found in the United States. 
 There is little "rough land." Three-fourths of the land is tenant-oper- 
 ated and many of the landlords do not live in the community. One of 
 the original council members showed especial interest in soil conserva- 
 tion from the beginning of council activities. In 1943-1944, he con- 
 ducted an evening course in soil conservation. In 1945, a soil conserva- 
 tion district was formed. In the winter of 1945-1946, members of the 
 district and the state soil conservation staffs cooperated in conducting 
 another evening school on soils which helped to educate Fisher farmers 
 in the use of the new conservation district. This school also served as a 
 demonstration to the state of the possibilities of cooperation between 
 soil conservation districts and departments of vocational agriculture. 
 A member of the Fisher council is now chairman of the Champaign 
 County Soil Conservation District. 
 
 J^IfiWton. It has been previously indicated that a departmental 
 council has not functioned continuously at Newton. However, councils 
 of some sort have been in action continuously there for the past six 
 years. The original departmental council, established in 1941, set a 
 pattern for the community program of agricultural education and 
 initiated activities out of which most of the subsequent accomplish- 
 
28 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 ments have developed. Neighborhood committees for war-training pro- 
 grams carried on in ten to twenty neighborhoods each year during the 
 war. At the close of the war the general council was re-established. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking accomplishments at Newton have been 
 the changes in the school district and in the agricultural department of 
 the school. In 1941, the Newton school district included the town of 
 Newton (population about 2,000) and two townships of rural territory. 
 In 1946, there were 12 townships in the district. The growth in size 
 of the school district is largely attributed to the contacts with farm 
 people made by the agricultural department through its adult and high 
 school classes. The agricultural department in 1941 enrolled 40 high 
 school boys and no adults. The current high school enrollment in 
 vocational agriculture is 165. Six teachers of vocational agriculture are 
 now employed. (Three are full-time teachers and three are internes 
 who devote about 60 per cent of their time to teaching.) It is expected, 
 on the basis of previous experience, that more than 500 persons will 
 be enrolled in 1947-48 in high school, veterans', young farmers', and 
 evening classes. 
 
 Another significant development at Newton has been an evening 
 class in dairying, now in its sixth year, which may be a prototype of 
 adult education in agriculture as it should be conducted in the future. 
 During the six years the herds of the class members have been on test, 
 high school boys have been employed for the testing and record-keeping. 
 The class has studied almost all phases of dairying, giving special atten- 
 tion to elimination of unprofitable cows, feeding, housing, and breeding. 
 An artificial insemination association has developed from the activities 
 of this group and other community efforts. The teacher has given a 
 great deal of individual help to class members on their farms. 
 
 A council has also been used in developing an educational program 
 for young farmers and young farm women which is one of the most 
 successful programs of its type in the state. A general council of vet- 
 erans assists in directing the program for about 200 young farmers 
 enrolled in veterans' classes. 
 
 Agricultural education activities at Newton are centered about a 
 few undertakings important to the community: improvement of milk, 
 poultry, and pork production; soil conservation; and reforestation. 
 Much attention has also been given to the human and social aspects of 
 agriculture. The boys in the Newton F.F.A. chapter are provided many 
 opportunities for personal and social development, and recreation and 
 social communication are fostered among adult groups. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 29 
 
 Studies of Councils in Other Schools 
 
 In the later years of the project in program-planning and evaluation, 
 and following the close of the project, the Agricultural Education staff 
 of the University of Illinois has worked with many other schools, 
 testing the procedures which evolved from the project and noting differ- 
 ences in conditions which might call for variations in practices. Staff 
 members have met with many advisory councils in many parts of Illi- 
 nois. Although there will be no report here of developments in com- 
 munities outside the project, experiences in these communities are 
 reflected in the recommendations which are to be made regarding the 
 use of advisory councils. 
 
 Some of these other communities in which the author has worked 
 with councils and with teachers in planning and carrying out council 
 arrangements are the following: Brussels, Carbondale, Fairmount, 
 Geneseo, Hamilton, Kenney, Mahomet, Marion, Philo, Potomac, Ray- 
 mond, Reddick, Sadorus, and Vandalia. Councils have been discussed 
 in classes and otherwise with a majority of the Illinois teachers of 
 vocational agriculture. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 GENERAL COUNCILS FOR AGRICULTURAL 
 DEPARTMENTS 
 
 General councils for agricultural departments have sometimes de- 
 veloped out of councils set up for limited and special purposes, such as 
 conducting an adult class in a particular subject. This development is 
 not normally to be expected, however. Council members sometimes 
 resist taking on new functions. The persons chosen for a special council 
 may not be the best persons to serve on a departmental council. There 
 are important advantages in starting with a general council which will 
 concern itself with the work of the whole agricultural department: 
 
 (1) A general council with diversified interests can envision the 
 whole program and keep its parts in balance. It can add special councils 
 or committees as special projects arise which they can fit into the gen- 
 eral plan. 
 
 (2) In choosing a general council first, a board of education has 
 available the best persons in the community. If other councils are 
 started first, the general council may be constituted from the "left- 
 overs." 
 
 (3) Experience in a general council is excellent training for those 
 who are to serve on special committees. After a general council has 
 served for a time, members of the council may be used as chairmen of 
 committees for adult classes, the F.F.A., and other departmental groups. 
 If this is done, the entire program of the department is kept integrated. 
 If special committees are started first, they may never feel any kinship 
 or obligation to a central council. 
 
 In starting a council organization, it may be desirable to have only 
 one group designated as a "council." Other groups for special purposes 
 could be known as "committees" of the council. 
 
 What Can Be Accomplished With a Departmental Council That 
 
 Can Not Be Accomplished Without One? 
 
 It is sometimes stated that a departmental council is unnecessary 
 because everything desirable which can be done with a council can be 
 done, and is done, without one. Occasionally it is stated that more of 
 these desirable things can be done better without a council because the 
 teacher is then free to consult with anyone and everyone in the com- 
 munity and so gets advice and support from more sources and is not 
 bound by the opinions and whims of a small group. 
 
 30 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 31 
 
 These points of view do not, however, seem to be tenable for 
 several reasons: 
 
 ( 1 ) Having a council does not keep the teacher from getting advice 
 and help from any other source. He will probably get advice from more 
 diversified sources if he has a council, since council members bring to 
 their meetings the ideas of many persons besides themselves. 
 
 (2) A teacher is much more likely to secure and use counsel if there 
 is a systematic arrangement for providing it. No one likes too well to 
 consult with others; we tend naturally to avoid adverse criticism. It is 
 easy to avoid counsel or to take it only from one's best friends. The 
 counsel one gets in these ways is likely to be unrepresentative of the 
 ideas of the community, and it may mislead entirely the program of a 
 department. Furthermore, many in a community may resent the teach- 
 er's associating only with his own friends and may object to having 
 the department unduly influenced by a few persons who have no official 
 status in connection with the school. A council, on the other hand, has 
 official status and is set up to represent all community interests. 
 
 (3) Perhaps the greatest gain from using a council is that the 
 advice received is responsible advice. It is easy for people to advise 
 the teacher to do this or that if they have no obvious responsibility for 
 what he does. The council, however, shares publicly with the teacher in 
 responsibility for the work of the department because the community 
 knows who the teacher's official advisers are. The advice council mem- 
 bers give is, therefore, likely to be considered advice. 
 
 There are many other values in working with an organized and 
 official group which will become apparent in the next few pages. 
 
 PURPOSES, VALUES, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE 
 GENERAL COUNCIL 
 
 It appears that councils more often fail and are discarded because their 
 possibilities for usefulness are not fully realized than for any other 
 reason. Accordingly, it appears desirable to devote considerable space to 
 indicating the purposes, values, and functions of councils. 
 
 Public Relations 
 
 Primarily a council is a method for helping a public school to serve 
 the public. If its members are representative of the public and if they 
 are given a real share in determining policies, the agricultural depart- 
 ment of a school will be used to serve more people, to serve people 
 more fairly, and to provide educational services more appropriate to 
 
32 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 popular needs than is likely to be the case when there is no council. A 
 council may also be considered a way of saying to the public contin- 
 uously, "The department of vocational agriculture in this public school 
 is yours to be used for your benefit and with your counsel." If a school 
 does not really wish to take the public into its confidence and to be- 
 come a truly public school, it should not set up a council, because lay- 
 men will soon discover that they are having no real influence in 
 determining policies and will decline to participate in a farcical ar- 
 rangement. An advisory council is perhaps the best public relations 
 device of an agricultural department if it is honestly and properly set 
 up for purposes other than public relations. A council designed merely 
 to tell the public what the school is doing or proposes to do and to 
 secure uncritical approval of these activities is a fraud and will be a 
 failure. 
 
 Determining Community Needs 
 
 An advisory council is useful in giving a teacher an estimate of the 
 community agricultural situation which can be the basis of his work 
 until more thorough studies can be made. Councils which become in- 
 terested in special studies and surveys are helpful in determining the 
 data to be gathered, in supporting the studies and securing cooperation 
 in them, and in evaluating the returns from these studies. 
 
 Council members have usually lived long in a community and are 
 interested in its future. They recognize weaknesses in farming and 
 farm life and they wish to correct them. When they attempt an educa- 
 tional program, they like to know the community situation at the time 
 the program is launched and the changes in the situation from time to 
 time as the program progresses. Community surveys, which have been 
 much praised and little used by agricultural educators, seem to many 
 council members to be necessary and reasonable means for getting in- 
 formation for diagnosing the community situation, for use in teaching, 
 and for the evaluation of educational outcomes. Council members are 
 able to make good suggestions about forms to be used and questions to 
 be asked so that the best community reaction will be secured. Their 
 wholehearted sponsorship of a survey is about all that is necessary to 
 insure its success. 
 
 Stating Objectives and Evaluating Progress Toward Them 
 
 It is difficult at first for many laymen to think in terms of educa- 
 tional objectives and educational evaluation. It is not as difficult for 
 them, however, as it is for many school men who have taught for years 
 without much attention to either. Council members, in pursuing their 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 33 
 
 vocations, are accustomed to having tangible goals and they know when 
 they have reached them. A farmer is usually very uncomfortable when 
 he can not see that he is accomplishing something definite. If this atti- 
 tude can be carried over to his activities as a council member, we can 
 expect that he will demand of the agricultural department definite 
 goals and definite proof of their attainment. The terminology of ob- 
 jectives and evaluation of the professional educator may have to be 
 waived for a time, but it does not take long for the farmer and the 
 educator to become able to speak the same language. 
 
 If the agricultural department of the school has been in operation 
 for some time, the first step taken by the council may be to assist in 
 evaluating the purposes and the program of the department and the re- 
 sults of the work already done. The chief weakness discovered by the 
 councils in the six Illinois schools which set up councils in 1941 was 
 that too few persons were being served by their agricultural depart- 
 ments; this conclusion led immediately in even- case to the extension of 
 class work for adults. A council alone can not evaluate very well the 
 work of a department. It can share with professional people from 
 within and without the community in arriving at an evaluation fairer 
 than either laymen or professional workers could reach by working 
 separately. 
 
 Correlating the Work of the School With That of Other Agencies 
 Only a part of the agricultural education of a community is done 
 by the school. In a typical community there are, in addition, extension 
 work with adults, 4-H Club work, the program of a soil conservation 
 district, a rural electrification program, and other efforts in agricultural 
 education. There are also agricultural organizations and institutions 
 whose activities should be correlated with those of the school. The 
 school has a unique advantage in correlating these activities because 
 the school belongs to all the people, all useful agencies have a right to 
 expect that the school will work with them, and all groups may meet at 
 the school. This advantage is greatly increased when there is an ad- 
 visor} - council made up of persons associated with every agricultural 
 and agricultural education enterprise of the community. Xot only does 
 such a council secure the coordination of the school with these enter- 
 prises, but it aids in getting cooperation among the groups sponsoring 
 them. One council member has remarked, "No one can claim credit for 
 anything done in this community because everyone is in on everything." 
 In addition to discussions among the regular members of a council, 
 provision is made for bringing into council meetings representatives of 
 other agencies to discuss the correlation of their programs with that 
 of the school. 
 
34 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 There have been many attempts to correlate the work of agricultural 
 education agencies at county, state, and national levels. Most of them 
 have not been very successful. It is at the level of the community that 
 correlation can and must take place. The same farmers may be working 
 with several agricultural education agencies. They expect each of these 
 agencies to make its appropriate contribution to the solution of their 
 problems and to cooperate with other agencies in helping them to solve 
 a particular problem if one agency alone can not give all the help 
 needed. The school need not be the initiator of cooperative efforts 
 among agricultural agencies; any group may take the initial steps. 
 However, the school does not need to wait until it is asked to work with 
 other groups. There are good reasons in many communities for the 
 schools being in the center, rather than at the periphery, of cooperative 
 undertakings in agricultural education. 
 
 Guiding and Supporting the Teacher of Agriculture 
 
 The teacher of agriculture with a good council finds his work more 
 successful and more satisfying. He develops personally and profes- 
 sionally through his work with a council. Without a council a teacher 
 may feel that he is almost an isolated worker, lacking companionship 
 and support in his work. If he is new in his community, he may be 
 regarded as a stranger and a transient. He may lack interest in the com- 
 munity at the beginning and may not become interested in it as he con- 
 tinues his residence there. 
 
 In associating with a council, a teacher comes to think somewhat as 
 do those who have spent their lives thus far in the community and who 
 expect to live them out there. He engages with the council members in 
 significant tasks, and he becomes inclined to remain in the community 
 to await their outcomes and enjoy their rewards. He can share many 
 of his difficult decisions with his council, so that these decisions are 
 wiser, and he does not bear the full responsibility for making them. 
 When a new enterprise is undertaken, its chances for success have 
 been carefully appraised by those best able to judge, and the loyal sup- 
 port of a capable group of men is provided. The council is a clearing- 
 house of community reactions. Through the council members, the 
 teacher may hear commendations of some of his efforts and criticisms 
 of others, and he may adjust his program accordingly. 
 
 All men, including teachers of agriculture, have "blind spots." 
 Teachers' personal enthusiasms for particular enterprises and their 
 personal aversions to other enterprises may lead them to develop pro- 
 grams which are unbalanced and unsuited to their communities. A 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 35 
 
 teacher who is enthusiastic about livestock may find himself in a grain- 
 farming community, but as he associates with grain farmers on his 
 council, he becomes interested in their work, sees their problems, and 
 perhaps becomes more proficient in dealing with crops and soils than 
 he previously was in dealing with livestock. 
 
 There is probably no method of aiding teachers in service which is 
 superior to the advisory council. A council helps a young teacher to 
 make a successful start. Its members are close to the teacher and in a 
 position to make helpful suggestions to him. They assist in giving him 
 an outlook on his job which is almost indispensable to his success. Their 
 maturity makes up for his immaturity; their eNperience offsets his 
 inexperience. 
 
 While a council may be most useful to a beginning teacher or a 
 teacher new in a community, it may help rejuvenate teachers who have 
 worked long in one situation, whose interest in teaching may be running 
 low, and whose programs may be becoming traditional and stereotyped. 
 A teacher who feels that he knows the needs and desires of the people 
 of a community may be considerably misinformed as to what they are 
 actually thinking. There is always a dangerous tendency for a teacher, 
 and particularly one w T ho has been successful, to become a dictator. A 
 council provides one check upon this tendency. We can not expect the 
 people of a community to continue their interest in the work of an 
 agricultural department if they feel that all the decisions about the work 
 of the department are being made by one man. Some of the decisions 
 he makes are likely to be poor decisions because he is in a position to 
 make them arbitrarily and with his own convenience too much in his 
 mind. 
 
 Assisting the School Administrator and the Board of Education 
 
 A council should not be considered to be advisory to the teacher 
 alone. It is advisory also to the school administrator and to the board 
 of education. Many school administrators have had little contact with 
 agriculture and feel that they can help their teachers of agriculture less 
 than they can help their other teachers. Some of them try only to em- 
 ploy good teachers and then they leave the management of the depart- 
 ments almost entirely to the teachers. Some teachers welcome this 
 arrangement, but it is not one which is good for the teacher, the admin- 
 istrator, the school, or the school's patrons. A school administrator 
 needs to know his agricultural constituency; through his contacts with 
 council members he becomes acquainted with some of the farmers of 
 his community and these contacts lead to other opportunities to work 
 with farmers. 
 
36 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 Sponsoring Adult Classes 
 
 Most advisory councils have been interested in extending the serv- 
 ices of the agricultural department to more people. An analysis com- 
 monly reveals that only from 5 to 15 per cent of the people of a com- 
 munity who might use a department are using it. The principal way to 
 extend a department's services to more people is through teaching 
 adults. Council members have usually been more willing to promote 
 adult education than teachers, administrators, and boards of education 
 have been. The support of council members in conducting an adult 
 program often gives these officials the courage they need to go ahead. 
 
 Departmental councils sometimes assist in sponsoring particular 
 adult classes, especially when they are introducing adult work into a 
 community. Since departmental councils are representative of many 
 interests, they are best adapted to working with adult classes which have 
 a wide appeal. When specialized types of classes are set up, such as 
 classes for dairymen, poultrymen, or part-time farmers, committees 
 made up of persons from these groups should take over. To secure 
 integration of efforts, members of the departmental council are often 
 chairmen of these committees. The committees are of two types: (1) 
 committees for neighborhood classes and (2) committees for classes 
 held at the high school for groups from various neighborhoods. 
 
 In sponsoring adult classes councils and committees perform such 
 functions as the following: 
 
 (1) Assisting in the choice of the subject to be taught and in plan- 
 ning the individual class meetings. 
 
 (2) Approving the teachers to be used. 
 
 (3) Enrolling class members. 
 
 (4) Deciding the time and place of holding class meetings. 
 
 (5) Arranging social and recreational activities to supplement the 
 class work. 
 
 (6) Planning educational tours for the class. 
 
 (7) Advising the teacher about local traditions, conventions, and at- 
 titudes which may affect his procedures. 
 
 (8) Planning and carrying out measures for dealing with individ- 
 uals who monopolize class discussion, take antagonistic attitudes, or 
 otherwise interfere with the work of the class. 
 
 (9) Raising and spending funds for class projects. 
 
 Advising About the High School Program 
 
 Nearly all organizations of boys and girls recognize the value of 
 adult support of these organizations. Boy and Girl Scouts, 4-H Clubs, 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 37 
 
 and others provide for adult sponsoring committees. Many of the bene- 
 fits secured in the use of these committees can be obtained through the 
 use of the departmental advisory committee in connection with the 
 high school program in vocational agriculture. A few advisory councils 
 have been primarily or exclusively concerned with the high school 
 program. They have visited high school classes, toured the farms of 
 high school boys to observe their projects, attended meetings of the 
 F.F.A. chapters, and conferred with the executive committees of these 
 chapters. 
 
 When a department council takes a broad view of its functions 
 and is interested in boys as well as in adults, it is possible to set up 
 standing committees of the council for high school class work, super- 
 vised practice, and the F.F.A. This is another means of putting council 
 members to work and of utilizing their individual interests in various 
 parts of the program. 
 
 Helping to Adapt the School Program to Emergencies and to 
 
 Gradual Changes in Community Situations 
 
 In recent years there has been a series of emergencies which have 
 required rather drastic changes in the schools' agricultural programs: 
 depression, war, and turmoil following war. Schools which had agri- 
 cultural councils were better able to get the community support neces- 
 sary during the depression to keep their agricultural departments oper- 
 ating. When the war emergency programs were introduced, councils 
 helped to get them into action. Councils assisted in introducing veterans' 
 education following the war. One of the chief criticisms directed against 
 the public schools is that they are slow to adjust to change. When an 
 agricultural department has the guidance of a group of forward-look- 
 ing, courageous men, it is stimulated to make the changes needed and 
 helped in making them. 
 
 Helping to Provide a Continuous Program When Teachers Change 
 
 and Avoiding Frequent Changes of Teachers 
 
 One of the greatest hazards to good agricultural education has been 
 the loss of good teachers to other communities and to other fields of 
 work. While the tenures of teachers of vocational agriculture have been 
 longer than the tenures of high school teachers generally, they have not 
 been long enough. It is generally considered that a teacher should not 
 undertake work in a community unless he expects to remain for at least 
 three years. However, the average tenure of teachers of vocational 
 agriculture in one Illinois community during the first twenty years of 
 the life of the agricultural department was U/2 years, and in many other 
 
38 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 communities changes have been too frequent for effective accomplish- 
 ments. All too commonly the program of the former teacher is for- 
 gotten when a new teacher takes over. Thus, there is no continuous 
 program of agricultural education in the community, but only a series 
 of starts and stops. As each additional program is abandoned, the dis- 
 illusionment of the community as to the possibility of accomplishing a 
 program increases, and it becomes harder and harder to launch a new 
 endeavor. Sometimes there are gaps among these isolated programs 
 because departments are temporarily discontinued. A continuous council 
 makes for the continuous employment of a teacher. A new teacher fits 
 into a program which the council has previously approved and which 
 has been in operation for some time. 
 
 A council and an ongoing program also help to retain good teachers. 
 If there are nine or more men, respected in the community and chosen 
 by the board as its advisers, who know the teacher's work intimately 
 and want it continued, the community is more likely to try to hold the 
 teacher than it would otherwise be. A good teacher, who has the sup- 
 port of a good council and who is in the midst of a worth-while program 
 with promising end results, is more likely to want to remain in a com- 
 munity than one who does not have a council or a program. This gener- 
 alization has support in several individual instances. A corollary is that 
 good teachers are more easily attracted to such communities than they 
 are to communities with no councils and no programs. 
 
 Maintaining a Maximum of Local Autonomy 
 
 It is especially important that a program that is as largely supported 
 from state and federal funds as vocational agriculture should set up 
 safeguards against excessive state and federal control. No better device 
 for this purpose than a strong council has yet been found. It would 
 probably be agreed that in communities having effective councils the 
 agricultural department of the school is closer to the people of the com- 
 munity and more responsive to the local public than the departments 
 of the same schools which are almost entirely supported by local funds. 
 A council whose eyes are fixed on the crucial problems of a community 
 which must be solved by education if they are to be solved at all is not 
 too much concerned about the sources of funds for solving these prob- 
 lems. If outside funds are available, they may well be used in the educa- 
 tional programs which the council has projected; if no outside funds 
 are available and the project is needed, a council will not be reluctant 
 to recommend that the board of education spend money on it. 
 
 In council meetings there can be discussion of new funds available 
 from state and federal sources and of the best uses to be made of them 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 39 
 
 in the community. Usually some acceptable way of using them can be 
 found, so that the community gets the benefit of all the assistance avail- 
 able to it. Uses unsuited to the community, which might be suggested 
 from the outside, are avoided. 
 
 Other Functions and Values 
 
 Some of the functions and values of a council become evident 
 simply from "arm-chair" deliberation. Others are less obvious and are 
 revealed as one works with councils. 
 
 Since the council is concerned with the total program of a depart- 
 ment and is likely to be bored by its details, council sessions provide 
 occasions when an overview of the program is afforded, when the 
 woods are seen instead of the trees, and when guiding policies are 
 worked out. These sessions are good for school men. They help, for 
 instance, in seeing the high school, young farmer, and adult farmer 
 programs in relation to each other rather than as completely separate 
 phases. The relationships among class work, supervised practice, and 
 the F.F.A. in the high school are considered. Council members are es- 
 pecially helpful in relating the work of the department to the total 
 community situation. Since they are concerned with all that is involved 
 in farming and farm life, rather than with technical agriculture in its 
 narrow sense, they often lead a teacher of agriculture who has been 
 narrowly trained in technical agriculture into teaching in areas he would' 
 not otherwise enter, such as the improvement of health conditions on 
 farms, home improvement, road improvement, governmental policies as 
 they affect farm people, and cooperation in agriculture. 
 
 Another indirect but important outcome of the use of advisory 
 councils has been the unification of community agencies concerned with 
 agriculture and agricultural education. Since a well-selected council in- 
 cludes persons familiar and sympathetic with all agricultural agencies 
 and programs in a community, there are brought together, sometimes 
 for the first time, the views of all groups concerned with agriculture. 
 Often these views are found to be compatible, and community groups 
 are led to work together in areas entirely outside those of concern to 
 a council. The school seems to be an especially good center in which 
 to bring together these diverging interests. Attitudes of good will, co- 
 operation, and public spirit commonly prevail in council meetings. 
 
 Councils have been valuable too in developing new community 
 leaders. Some of our best council members have been persons who have 
 not previously been recognized as leaders, but who later became leaders 
 in other activities because of their work on councils. 
 
40 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 Council meetings have been useful in disseminating new agricul- 
 tural information and developing new attitudes in the community. Some 
 teachers think of their councils as their "best adult classes," though 
 they are, of course, not counted as adult classes or accredited as such. 
 
 Council experience may assist in acquainting a group in a commu- 
 nity with the need for community planning and in preparing them to 
 participate in community planning once it is undertaken. Some of the 
 functions which have to be undertaken by agricultural advisory councils 
 are those which ought to be performed by a community-planning 
 group. If there were agencies for community planning, most com- 
 munity study could be left to them. Plans for communities would be 
 available and accepted, so that school advisory councils could spend 
 their time planning educational programs in harmony with the com- 
 munity plans. There are unusual opportunities for community planning 
 in many of our small and relatively homogeneous rural communities. 
 Advisory councils may pave the way for a healthy, grassroots com- 
 munity-planning movement. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF DEPARTMENTAL COUNCILS 
 
 Many councils seem to have failed because of their loose organization. 
 Councils have sometimes been set up by the teacher of agriculture with- 
 out consulting the school administrators or the boards of education. 
 Often the council itself is not organized, but its members come together 
 irregularly on the call of the teacher, and the teacher presides at the 
 meetings and determines the agenda discussed. 
 
 Successful councils are usually definitely organized bodies. They 
 have their own officers; the teacher and the school administrator sit 
 with the council but are not members and do not, of course, hold council 
 offices. There are regular and relatively frequent meetings. The council 
 members, or an executive committee representing them, decide the 
 nature of the meetings in cooperation with school authorities. Minutes 
 of meetings are kept by the council's secretary and copies of the 
 minutes are distributed among the council members. Special events 
 (such as picnics for council members, teachers, and their families) are 
 provided on the initiative of the council. 
 
 Our better councils have a definite status in the administrative or- 
 ganization of the school. They are created by boards of education and 
 can be put out of existence by these boards. Their members are ap- 
 pointed or approved by the boards of education. The boards determine 
 the field in which councils may be active and the conditions under which 
 they work. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 41 
 
 Authorization of a Council 
 
 The first step in organizing a council is to have it authorized, first 
 by the school administrator and then by the board of education. A 
 teacher has no right to establish a council on his own initiative. Re- 
 sentment on the part of board members and administrators is likely to 
 follow the discovery that the teacher is independently using a council. 
 Many board members and administrators who have not had first-hand 
 experience with councils are skeptical of their use, but in most cases 
 they are willing to try to use councils if they are tactfully approached. 
 No case has been reported to us of dissatisfaction on the part of board 
 members and administrators after councils have been in existence for 
 a time. 
 
 Setting Up Council Policies 
 
 Certain policies with respect to a council must be determined by the 
 teacher and the administrator with the approval of the board of educa- 
 tion before a council is established. Council members should be told 
 about these policies before they accept office, or at their first meeting. 
 These policies should cover such points as the following: (1) rela- 
 tions of the council to the teacher, the administrator, and the board 
 of education; (2) the number of council members, the manner of their 
 selection, and the length of their terms; (3) joint meetings between the 
 board and the council; (4) the limitations on the field of activity of the 
 council; (5) the extent to which the council is to be advisory and the 
 extent to which it is to be allowed to carry out or sponsor activities 
 of its own choosing; (6) the way in which council activities are to be 
 reported to the board of education; (7) representation of the board of 
 education at council meetings. It is well to have these policies in writing 
 for the protection of all concerned. 
 
 Other policies may be determined by the council itself, acting 
 within the framework provided by the board of education. Some of the 
 principal items which may be covered by self-made council rules are 
 the following: (1) council officers and their duties, (2) standing com- 
 mittees of the council, (3) bases for dropping an individual from coun- 
 cil membership, such as failure to attend meetings, (4) time and place 
 of regular meetings, and (5) procedures in calling special meetings. 
 
 Constitution and By-Laws 
 
 Some schools have thought it desirable to provide a formal constitu- 
 tion with by-laws. The following constitution and by-laws are adapted 
 from a constitution and by-laws • soon to be submitted for adoption 
 
42 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 and use at Fisher, Illinois. The Fisher proposal is based upon six years 
 of experience with a council. Only a few changes have been made in 
 adapting the proposal for this publication. Some features, adapted to 
 the Fisher situation, may not be desirable elsewhere, for example, the 
 provision for a council of twelve members. 
 
 Section A. Purposes 
 
 Article 1. The Advisory Council shall exist only during such time 
 as it may be authorized by the Principal and the Board of 
 Education. 
 
 Article 2. The Advisory Council may direct its advice toward the 
 Teacher of Agriculture, the Principal, or the Board of Educa- 
 tion. It shall limit its activities to matters which directly concern 
 the Department of Vocational Agriculture. 
 
 Article 3. It shall be the duty of the Advisory Council to: 
 
 a. Study the needs of the community which may be related to 
 the work of the Department of Vocational Agriculture. 
 
 b. Suggest and advise regarding the objectives of the school's 
 program of agricultural education. 
 
 c. Aid and guide the Department of Vocational Agriculture in 
 those activities which will lead to progress toward these 
 objectives: 
 
 (1) Advise regarding the courses to be offered to high 
 school, young farmer, and adult classes. 
 
 (2) Aid in enrolling class members when council assistance 
 is needed. 
 
 (3) Aid in the selection of teachers when assistance is re- 
 quested by the Board of Education and the Principal. 
 
 (4) Offer constructive criticism of the instruction offered 
 and the instructional facilities available. 
 
 (5) Assist in evaluating the success of the courses offered, in 
 the light of the objectives previously selected. 
 
 d. Study the programs of agricultural education in other com- 
 munities with the idea of encouraging the use in this com- 
 munity of those practices which may be applicable. 
 
 e. Revise the objectives of agricultural education as study and 
 experience warrant. 
 
 f. Serve as an avenue of communication between the Depart- 
 ment of Vocational Agriculture and the community. 
 
 g. Estimate or measure annually the progress made toward 
 accepted objectives. 
 
 h. Provide special committees, or the nuclei of special commit- 
 tees, to work with various groups participating in the pro- 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 43 
 
 gram of agricultural education, such as adults, young farmers, 
 high school pupils, F.F.A. members, and veterans. 
 
 Section B. Membership 
 
 Article 1. There shall be twelve members of the Advisory Council. 
 
 Article 2. Members shall be selected in such a way that they repre- 
 sent a cross-section of the community- served by the Department 
 of Vocational Agriculture. 
 
 Article 3. Members shall be nominated by the Principal of the 
 High School after consultation with the Teacher of Vocational 
 Agriculture and the Advisory Council and shall be appointed by 
 the Board of Education. 
 
 Article 4. Members shall be notified of their appointments by the 
 Principal. 
 
 Article 5. Each appointment of an advisory council member shall 
 be for three years. 
 
 Article 6. Four new members shall be appointed each year. 
 
 Article 7 . The term of a new council member shall begin on Sep- 
 tember 1. 
 
 Article 8. A council member may not serve continuously for more 
 than three years, except that he may be appointed for a full 
 term after serving out the unexpired term of a member who has 
 left the council. 
 
 Article 9. After a lapse of a year, a council member who has 
 served a full term may be reappointed to membership in the 
 Council. 
 
 Article 10. An individual will automatically lose membership in 
 the Council if he fails to attend three successive meetings with- 
 out presenting, in advance, to the Chairman of the Council or to 
 the Teacher of Vocational Agriculture a valid excuse for his 
 absence. 
 
 Article 11. Two members of the Board of Education shall be ap- 
 pointed by the Board of Education to represent it at council 
 meetings and at least one member of the Board will be expected 
 to be present at each council meeting. 
 
 Article 12. The Principal and the Teacher of Vocational Agricul- 
 ture shall be encouraged to attend all council meetings but shall 
 not be considered to be council members. 
 
 Article 13. Salaried professional workers in the fields of agricul- 
 ture and education in the community are to be invited to attend 
 council meetings when their cooperation is needed, but the Board 
 
44 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 of Education will not appoint such persons to membership in 
 the Council. 
 
 Section C. Meetings 
 
 Article 1. Regular meetings of the Council will be held the second 
 Thursday of each month at the Agricultural Room of the school 
 unless other arrangements are made by the Council or its Exec- 
 utive Committee. 
 
 Article 2. Special meetings of the Council may be called by the 
 Council or its Executive Committee. 
 
 Article 3. Written notices of council meetings shall be mailed to all 
 members before each meeting. These notices will be prepared by 
 the Teacher of Vocational Agriculture and mailed by the school 
 Secretary. 
 
 Article 4. Meetings shall be not more than two hours long unless 
 a majority of the council members vote to continue a particular 
 meeting for more than two hours. 
 
 Section D. Officers and Their Duties 
 
 Article 1. The officers shall be a Chairman, a Vice-Chairman, a 
 Secretary, and an Executive Committee. 
 
 Article 2. Officers shall be elected annually by majority vote of the 
 council members at the September meeting. 
 
 Article 3. The Chairman shall be elected from among those mem- 
 bers who have served on the Council for at least one year. His 
 duties shall be: 
 
 a. To preside at the meetings of the Council. 
 
 b. To serve as Chairman of the Executive Committee. 
 
 c. To appoint special committees, which may include persons 
 other than council members. 
 
 Article 4. The Vice-Chairman shall perform the duties of the 
 
 Chairman when he is unable to perform them. 
 Article 5. The Secretary shall: 
 
 a. Keep records of the attendance of members at meetings. 
 
 b. Keep a record of discussion and recommendations. 
 
 c . Maintain a permanent record file of council activities. 
 
 d. Distribute minutes of council meetings and copies of other 
 council documents to council members, the Board of Educa- 
 tion, the Principal, the Teacher of Vocational Agriculture, 
 and others who may be concerned. He shall have the assist- 
 ance of the school staff and the use of school facilities in 
 performing this function. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education* 45 
 
 Article 6. The Executive Committee shall consist of the Chairman, 
 the Vice-Chairman and the Secretary. It shall : 
 
 a . Act on urgent council matters between council meetings. 
 
 b. Prepare agenda for council meetings if requested to do so by 
 the Council. 
 
 c. Call special meetings of the Council as they are needed. 
 
 Number and Choice of Council Members 
 
 Many councils have been ineffective because they have been too 
 small and too unrepresentative of their communities. Perhaps the first 
 consideration in determining the number of council members is that the 
 council should be truly representative of all elements in the community 
 who are concerned in any way with agriculture. Some of the respects 
 in which a council should be representative are the following: 
 
 (1) There should be geographical representation from all sections 
 of the community. 
 
 (2) Representatives of various types of farming should be in- 
 cluded. 
 
 (3) Owners, tenants, and laborers should be represented. 
 
 (4) There should be a wide range in the ages of council members. 
 
 (5) There should be members of the various farmers' organiza- 
 tions and cooperatives and persons affiliated with none of these organi- 
 zations if there is a substantial group of unorganized farmers in the 
 community. 
 
 (6) Different religious and political groups should be recognized 
 somewhat in proportion to their membership in the community. 
 
 (7) There should be members from town and country. 
 
 (8) Women should be included. 
 
 (9) There should be persons with sons in high school classes in 
 vocational agriculture and persons with no children in these classes. 
 
 Xo council member should come into the council as a representative 
 of any one of these groups. The members should be selected because 
 they are high-minded, public-spirited persons, with secondary but 
 deliberate consideration of the groups to which they belong. Election 
 of council members by various groups in a community is a particularly 
 unfortunate practice since the members thus chosen come to the council 
 as spokesmen for the groups who chose them, sometimes as instructed 
 spokesmen, and all of the feuds of the community center in the council 
 meetings. 
 
46 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 To get a truly representative council, even in a small community, 
 it is usually necessary to have nine or more members. A council of 
 more than twelve members has been found to be unwieldy. Hence, the 
 usual range of membership is from nine to twelve. It may be advisable 
 to start with a council of seven to nine and to add other members if it 
 is discovered that the council is in some respects unrepresentative. Very 
 often the first group chosen is not as representative as it should be, and 
 because it is unrepresentative, it may sponsor an unbalanced program 
 which neglects important community interests. 
 
 It seems best to have the membership of the council made up 
 dominantly of farmers. Not more than two or three members from 
 town are used, and they are persons acceptable to the majority group 
 of farmers. 
 
 The school administrator and the teacher of agriculture should not, 
 of course, be members of a council advising them. A school board 
 member may well sit with a council, but he should not be a member of 
 it. Paid professional workers in agriculture, such as farm advisers and 
 soil conservation workers, should not be included, as such, but should 
 be asked to confer with the council at times about relationships of their 
 work with that of the school. 
 
 Persons inexperienced in the use of councils seem to err most 
 often in the selection of council members who are too old or too nearly 
 of one age. There has been a traditional idea that council members 
 should be "key farmers." The interpretation has sometimes been that 
 a "key farmer" is a middle-aged, prosperous farmer who has long been 
 recognized as a leader and who has held offices in farmers' organiza- 
 tions. If this conception is maintained, the council members selected 
 tend to vary from 45 to 60 years of age or older. Some of the members 
 are likely to be conservative, worn-out, and disillusioned men who tend 
 to look more to the past than to the future. They are certainly not repre- 
 sentative of the community. If somewhat younger farm leaders, aged 
 35 to 50 are chosen, they are likely to be men busy with other interests 
 who have little time and enthusiasm left for the work of the agricultural 
 department. Some of the best council members have been men under 
 30 who have never held official positions of any sort. Older men are 
 needed in a balanced council, but younger men should not be over- 
 looked. 
 
 It is often desirable also to avoid men who are currently holding 
 important offices in other community organizations. These offices may 
 have a first claim on their time and there may be little time left for the 
 advisory council. Furthermore, their first allegiance may be to another 
 organization, and they may tend to think of the agricultural department 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 47 
 
 of the school in terms of the contribution it makes to their organization 
 and to try to make the department subsidiary. 
 
 Men who would tend to dominate other members should be avoided 
 as council members. If the domination of an individual is extreme, a 
 "one-man council" results; the other members lose interest; and the 
 dominating one tends even to dominate the teacher. 
 
 Sanderson and Alinsky have written with insight about the kinds 
 of "leaders" we want as council members. 1 They and others have 
 pointed out that the real leaders of a community are often not those 
 who are aggressive in community affairs, active in organizations, or 
 eager to promote themselves to offices. They are, rather, the people 
 others have come, through the years, to have confidence in and who 
 are consulted because they possess courage, integrity, an unselfish spirit, 
 and a keen and balanced mind. 
 
 To be sure, the "poorest farmers" of a community would not be 
 good council members, but a young man in a second- or third-rate farm- 
 ing situation who has made the most of his limited opportunities and 
 is on his way to greater successes may be one of the best of council 
 members. 
 
 There is still some confusion about the mechanics of choosing 
 council members and notifying them that they have been chosen. At 
 least five general approaches have been used: 
 
 (1) In organizing a new council, the teacher may ask the people of 
 the community, as he meets them informally, for suggestions as to good 
 council members. The consensus of the nominations of 100 or more 
 people of varied interests has been found very reliable in making 
 selections. 
 
 (2) Prospective council members have been approached by the 
 teacher who "sounds them out" as to their attitudes toward the council. 
 Those who do not react satisfactorily are not nominated. 
 
 (3) Council members are named by the board of education on 
 nomination by the teacher and the school administrator and are then 
 "drafted" for their duties. Since the "draft" is not compulsory, a small 
 percentage of refusals to serve (perhaps 10 to 20 per cent) can be 
 expected when this method is used. 
 
 (4) After a council is in operation, the members of the council 
 assist in nominating new council members. Old members frequently 
 know already the attitudes toward council service of the men sug- 
 gested or they can learn them more easily and less conspicuously than 
 a teacher could. 
 
 1 Sanderson, Dwight. Leadership for Rural Life. New York: Association Press, 1940, 
 127 pp. Alinsky, Saul. Reveille for Radicals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946, 
 228 pp. 
 
48 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 (5) Some who like to emphasize democratic procedures arrange 
 for the election of council members in some manner. This arrangement 
 has been most feasible in choosing members of adult education councils. 
 Members of an adult class that continues in operation year after year 
 may easily elect their own council members and may like to do so if the 
 board of education will agree to this procedure. 
 
 Various combinations of these methods may be used in different 
 situations. The one principle to be kept clearly in mind is that the board 
 of education and the school administrator must approve the methods 
 to be used. If a board and an administrator want the advice of council 
 members in choosing new members, or if they are willing to submit the 
 choice of council members to a community election of some sort, that 
 is their privilege. It can be reported, however, that nomination by the 
 teacher and administrator and election by the board of education works 
 very well if a large and representative group of people have been con- 
 sulted in making up the list of nominees. If the choices are made care- 
 fully, the public seems to be as well satisfied as it is when it makes its 
 own choices. The arrangement insures, moreover, that the council is 
 kept closely integrated with the administration of the school. Perhaps 
 this is a case where representative democracy is more satisfactory than 
 pure democracy. The public always has an opportunity to influence its 
 elected school board members if there is dissatisfaction with the council 
 members the board provides. 
 
 Many councils have included one or two school board members. 
 This does not seem to be the best arrangement. The council is supposed 
 to be advisory to the board and a given person should probably not give 
 advice in one group and accept or reject it in another group. A better 
 arrangement is to have one or two board members chosen to sit with 
 the council, mainly to audit the meetings and to make sure that the 
 board has knowledge of everything that goes on in council meetings. 
 A board member can not be expected to speak for the board in council 
 meetings, and, since he might seem to be speaking for the board, he is 
 quite likely to be hesitant to speak at all. The board member makes his 
 greatest contribution to the council when he reports to the board and 
 when he airs in board meetings convictions which may have grown 
 out of his council experiences. 
 
 Terms of Council Members 
 
 Some council members have been chosen for indefinite terms and 
 they go on serving for years. It is more satisfactory to provide for 
 definite terms, perhaps of three years, and to arrange for a definite 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 49 
 
 rotation of membership. Since it takes time for new council members 
 to become familiar with their duties, it may be desirable at the outset 
 to continue the same council for two years with only those changes 
 which result from withdrawals or inactivity. Thereafter each member 
 may be assigned by lot a term of one, two, or three years to get the 
 three-year rotating system into action. Since there is danger that those 
 concerned may feel obligated to continue certain persons on the council 
 as long as they wish to serve, it is well to announce in advance that no 
 member is eligible for reappointment until at least one year after the 
 expiration of his term. A council with rotating terms brings in "new 
 blood" and educates an increasing number of people with respect to 
 the agricultural program of the school. 
 
 Council Officers and Committees 
 
 The organization of a council should be kept simple and informal. 
 A chairman and a secretary are the minimum complement of officers. 
 A vice-chairman may be desirable. Council committees have been little 
 used, but there is a greater place for them than has been found in the 
 past. It has already been suggested that committees might be set up 
 for adult work, high school class work, supervised practice, and F.F.A. 
 A council committee might work with a veterans' council. Special com- 
 mittees may be needed for social occasions, for working out community 
 surveys, or for other projects. The advantages in using committees are 
 that more work is done and council members have a chance to work 
 in the areas in which they have special interests and abilities. 
 
 Council Meetings 
 
 Monthly meetings of a departmental council are desirable. It may 
 be advisable to omit meetings during the busiest seasons on the farms. 
 There should be a regular time set for the meetings, e.g., the first Tues- 
 day in each month. Meetings are usually held in the agricultural room 
 of the high school. A two-hour meeting seems to be about right. Meet- 
 ings should begin and end promptly. Members may seem interested 
 and willing to remain for long sessions, but in the long run they be- 
 come discontented if meetings are long, and their attendance may fall 
 off. It is reasonable to expect that the average attendance at council 
 meetings will be 80 per cent or more of the council members. 
 
 There should be definite agenda for each meeting, usually centering 
 about one topic. A live council usually has a number of topics awaiting 
 discussion at its meetings. If possible a yearly schedule of meetings 
 and topics should be arranged. 
 
50 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 A council should have the privilege of holding meetings from which 
 all others are excluded. Usually the teacher, the principal, and the 
 representative of the board of education meet with the council. 
 
 One or two social meetings a year should be interspersed with the 
 business meetings. One council has held its meetings on Sunday after- 
 noons at a country club. Members and their families have enjoyed a 
 "pot luck" dinner, followed by discussions of council problems. Mem- 
 bers of the families have shared in the discussions. 
 
 Minutes of council meetings should be kept and circulated among 
 the members. A secretary from the group may take the minutes, but 
 the work of typing and distributing them may be done by the school. 
 Permanent records of the council are best kept in the agriculture room 
 at the school. 
 
 Acquainting Council Members With Their Duties 
 
 In starting a new council to work or in beginning the work of a new 
 year, a joint meeting of the council and the board of education is 
 desirable. At such a meeting a common understanding of the work of 
 the council and of its relationships to the board of education can be 
 reached. Visits to nearby councils that are functioning well are very 
 helpful in getting a new council under way. It is very hard for the 
 ordinary, uninitiated person to comprehend the possibilities of a council 
 or to visualize the work a council does; seeing is often required if there 
 is to be believing. 
 
 Subjects for the First Year's Council Meetings 
 
 There is much for a council to do in its first year. Some of the topics 
 which might be taken up at council meetings follow: 
 
 (1) What is our agriculture department for? How good is it? How many 
 people is it reaching? What territory should it serve? How many farmer operators 
 are there in this territory ? How man)' young farmers who are not farm operators ? 
 Who in the territory should be served? Should agriculture be taught to high school 
 pupils other than farm boys? 
 
 (2) How is the agriculture department administered? Where does it get the 
 funds for its support and on what terms ? How much is it controlled from outside 
 the community? What activities might it carry on for which no state and federal 
 funds are available? What might be done with new state and federal funds which 
 are to be available? 
 
 (3) What is the agricultural situation in the community? What are the prin- 
 cipal needs of agriculture and farm people? 
 
 (4) What are the prospective agricultural opportunities in the community? 
 How many new farm operators are needed annually? How many boys and young 
 men should be in training to become farm operators? What agricultural opportuni- 
 ties are there outside of farming ? What guidance should boys and young men have 
 with respect to the community's agricultural opportunities? To what extent can 
 the surplus population of the community find outlets in agricultural occupations 
 outside the community? 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 51 
 
 (5) How competent are the members of the community as farmers? For this 
 meeting the teacher may prepare a list of questions he would like to have answered, 
 such as: (a) What are the average yields of the common crops? (b) To what 
 extent are soil-saving practices in use? (c) What is the average production of 
 pork per sow? Butterfat per cow? Eggs per hen? (d) What is the percentage 
 of tenancy? How satisfactory are the leases in use? 
 
 When more exact data can be secured from other sources, the opinions of 
 council members would, of course, not be sought. 
 
 (6) Joint meeting with the F.FA. chapter to observe it in action. 
 
 (7) Joint meeting with the executive committee of the F.F.A. chapter. 
 
 (8) Meeting with the county farm adviser to work on joint programs. 
 
 (9) Meeting with representatives of the Soil Conservation District, the Rural 
 Electrification Administration, or of the Farm Security Administration. 
 
 (10) Meeting with representatives of local farmers' organizations. 
 
 (11) Planning the evening school program for the year. 
 
 (12) Meeting with representatives of veterans' and young farmers' classes to 
 plan the relationships of these classes to the general departmental program. 
 
 (13) Discussion of supervised practice for high school boys (this subject may 
 be taken up more appropriately at one of the meetings on F.F.A. work) . 
 
 (14) Meetings to plan particular programs, such as education in soil conserva- 
 tion and livestock improvement. 
 
 (15) In some communities, a meeting on buildings and facilities for the agri- 
 culture department. 
 
 (16) An annual meeting devoted to the evaluation of results of work already 
 attempted. 
 
 (17) An annual social affair for council members and their families, possibly 
 including members of the board of education and the teaching staff of the school 
 and their families. 
 
 Special Precautions in the First Year 
 
 Teachers of agriculture have found that it is desirable to begin the 
 discussions of a new council with consideration of the community sit- 
 uation and community needs. Council members are "at home" in a 
 discussion of this type and express themselves freely. This is the 
 point at which the thinking of the teacher and the school administrator 
 should also begin if an educational program suited to the community is 
 to develop. Interest in council participation can be killed by spending 
 time in the initial council meetings in considering school problems, 
 such as providing buildings and equipment, maintaining discipline, plan- 
 ning courses, or insuring a better status for the teachers, unless these 
 problems are clearly related to the community situation. 
 
 The teacher must make clear to the council at the outset that the 
 members are to share in making plans and are not merely to approve 
 completed plans which the teacher has worked out. Council members 
 should be urged to take an active part in planning departmental 
 activities. After a proposal has been discussed in a council meeting, 
 the group may authorize the teacher to prepare and bring in a plan. 
 
 of -u: • 
 
52 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 Council members have been found to be rather uniformly sympa- 
 thetic and constructive in their criticisms; sometimes they have not 
 been critical enough. It may help in the long run to have one or two 
 of the teacher's proposals vetoed by the members early in the life of 
 a council and to have their vetoes upheld, to convince them that they 
 really have something to say about the management of the department. 
 There may be a long-run advantage also in having some decision of 
 the council vetoed by the board, the administrator, or the teacher as a 
 further means of establishing the place of the council in the general 
 scheme of things. 
 
 An effort should be made to find, soon after the council is organized, 
 some definite project which council members unanimously agree is im- 
 portant and feasible and to carry out this project as rapidly as possible. 
 If this is done, the council soon develops a sense of power, achieve- 
 ment, and pride in its accomplishments. 
 
 During the first year there may be difficulty in getting the council 
 members to think in terms of education. They can see agricultural needs 
 and some of the remedies for them, but they sometimes do not under- 
 stand the educational approach to meeting them. They may not see 
 very clearly what the school may do and what it may not properly do 
 in meeting these needs. The greatest danger may be that they will 
 recommend that the school engage in service activities rather than in 
 educational activities in attempting to deal with community problems. 
 It is important that they understand that the school's only function is 
 education. They should realize that education has to do with human 
 growth and change, which must precede the agricultural changes they 
 desire; that people come first; that agricultural changes are desirable 
 only as they benefit people; and that people on farms can not be 
 subordinated to any system of farming, however modern and scientific 
 the system may be. 
 
 There may be some initial trouble also because the council may 
 wander out of the field of agriculture, and the members may have to 
 be told, tactfully, that they are out of their field. One council, for ex- 
 ample, spent an evening on bus transportation for all school children, 
 which is a function of the board of education and the school adminis- 
 trator. Another has been dealing with the consolidation of elementary 
 schools in the community. A council may loose its effectiveness in guid- 
 ing the work of the agriculture department if it scatters its interest over 
 too much territory; there is danger too that by "treading on others' 
 toes" it may offend important people and the council may be discon- 
 tinued. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 53 
 
 Publicizing Council Activities 
 
 Practice is not yet standardized and opinions differ as to the amount 
 and kind of publicity which should be given a council and its activities. 
 In general, councils have worked behind the scenes and have received 
 little public credit for their work. Many council members prefer this 
 arrangement. Too much publicity of the work of a council might offend 
 the board of education or give the public the impression that the 
 board has turned over one department of the school to another agency. 
 Occasionally a modest council member feels that he does not really 
 belong on the council since he does not feel that he is one of the best 
 farmers in the community and that other farmers better than he might 
 resent his being chosen. What is needed in such a case is to make clear 
 to the council and the public that council members are intended to be 
 representative of the community, not the "best" or the "key" farmers. 
 
 Perhaps a middle-of-the-road policy is best with respect to council 
 publicity. The following can apparently be done without adverse 
 results: 
 
 (1) Membership in the council should be announced to the public 
 through the newspapers and otherwise. The public is entitled to know 
 that there is a council and to know who its members are. If the council 
 is to share in the management of the department and is to give respon- 
 sible counsel, it should recognize that the public is holding it, in part, 
 responsible for the work done. 
 
 (2) A photograph of the council with the names of the members 
 attached may well be displayed in the agriculture room. 
 
 (3) Members of the council may be invited to departmental func- 
 tions, such as parent-son banquets, and may be introduced to the guests. 
 
 (4) The council, along with the administrator and the board, may be 
 given credit for originating certain projects when they are publicized in 
 the community. 
 
 (5) An annual meeting open to the public for the discussion of de- 
 partmental affairs may be held at which the council members share with 
 the teacher and administrator in explaining the work of the department 
 and in securing suggestions for improvement. Arrangements for such 
 meetings have been very rare but the experience with them has been 
 very satisfactory. 
 
 (6) Council committees may need to have their activities on certain 
 projects publicized. 
 
 (7) The teacher may appear with one or more council members at 
 certain meetings in the community in the interests of the department — 
 for example, at meetings of service clubs and farmers' groups. 
 
54 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 Reactions of Members to Service on Councils 
 
 A study is needed of the reactions of persons who have served as 
 council members. Samplings might be taken of attitudes during the first 
 months of service, after two or three years of continuous service, and 
 after all council connections have been severed. Lacking such a study, 
 it is possible to report only random observations and discussions which 
 reflect the attitudes of certain council members. 
 
 One council member has stated that serving on a council was the 
 most valuable experience of his life, in that it has led him into new 
 associations and new opportunities for leadership and service. Satis- 
 faction in participating in active and useful councils has been shown 
 by regular attendance at meetings, by service year after year, and by 
 acceptance of reappointments after serving complete terms. 
 
 Council members seem to derive such personal benefits as the fol- 
 lowing: a sense of usefulness in an important community enterprise; an 
 opportunity to become well acquainted with congenial persons who, like 
 themselves, are interested in farming and are progressive in their out- 
 look; a chance to keep abreast with their children who are enrolled in 
 high school and part-time classes in vocational agriculture and to aid in 
 securing better opportunities for their children in these classes; a means 
 of keeping informed about all important community enterprises affect- 
 ing agriculture and of becoming acquainted with the workers in the 
 various agricultural agencies of the community; new ideas and practices 
 useful in their own farming activities. 
 
 Awards for Council Service 
 
 A board of education may show its appreciation of the service of 
 council members by awarding them certificates at the close of a year 
 or a term of service. There has been sufficient demand for a special 
 certificate for advisory council members that one publishing house now 
 prints such a certificate. 2 
 
 2 The Interstate Printers and Publishers, Danville, Illinois 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SPECIAL COUNCILS AND COMMITTEES FOR 
 AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENTS 
 
 Mention has been made (see page 15) of several types of special 
 councils or committees which may supplement the work of general, or 
 departmental, councils, such as those for conducting a particular adult 
 class at the high school; neighborhood councils for conducting adult 
 classes in certain areas of a community; councils for veterans' classes, 
 and for general adult programs in which the agricultural departments 
 share; and F.F.A. councils. It has been urged that these be subsidiaries 
 or committees of general councils. 
 
 Councils for Adult Classes 
 
 The departmental council may be the best one to sponsor certain 
 adult classes meeting at the high school which are of general interest 
 to the community. There may, however, be need for classes for special 
 groups which should also meet at the high school. A departmental 
 council of the type we have described would not be well suited to 
 sponsor a class in dairying if there are only a few farmers concerned 
 with dairying, but classes for special groups should be held if they are 
 warranted. Council members should be chosen from among those who 
 will regularly attend the class to be conducted. If the class is to con- 
 tinue for only one year, the council may be discontinued at the end of 
 the year. Some special classes go on year after year with continuing 
 councils and rotating council memberships. 
 
 Neighborhood Councils 
 
 Many communities are composed of several neighborhoods. As yet 
 neighborhood councils have been used only to conduct adult classes, 
 but uses may be found for them in connection with other phases of a 
 department's program. Attendance at adult classes is materially in- 
 creased when these classes are held at centers convenient to the 
 proposed membership. It is sometimes difficult in beginning adult work 
 to get the people from one neighborhood to associate in adult classes 
 with the people from other neighborhoods. Since the membership in 
 the neighborhood adult classes is likely to be small and the area served 
 limited, neighborhood councils of five to seven persons are adequate. 
 Councils including fewer than five members seem almost never to be 
 adequate. Neighborhood councils may be continuing councils with pro- 
 visions for three-year terms and with the terms staggered so that a 
 part of the members retire each year. A member of the departmental 
 
 55 
 
56 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 council may well serve as chairman or member of the council in his 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Councils for Veterans' Classes 
 
 Two types of councils have been used in connection with classes for 
 farm veterans. 
 
 Generally over the United States, county councils have been set up 
 consisting of representatives of the various agencies of the U. S. De- 
 partment of Agriculture and of farmers' organizations. Other farmers 
 and other non-farmers have often been included. In some cases, similar 
 councils have been provided in communities, or departmental advisory 
 councils already functioning have been used. These councils pass upon 
 the eligibility of veterans for admission to the farm training program, 
 sometimes dealing with every veteran who applies for training and 
 sometimes with only the doubtful cases referred to them by school 
 authorities. In determining eligibility, they consider a veteran's occu- 
 pational objective, his fitness for the kind of training proposed, his 
 farming program, the farming facilities available to him, and the 
 qualifications of his farmer-trainer. Some of these councils review 
 regularly the progress of veterans in their training programs and recom- 
 mend discontinuance when progress is not being made. They are often 
 active also in seeing that appropriate class and group training is given. 
 Since representatives of agencies other than the school are included, 
 these representatives may assist in providing training experiences which 
 supplement those of the school and which can be provided by the 
 agricultural extension service, the soil conservation district, and other 
 agencies. 
 
 A second type of council for veterans' classes, which has been less 
 used but which is regarded in some quarters as even more useful, is a 
 council made up of veterans in training. Most of these councils have 
 served a particular veterans' class and have included three to five mem- 
 bers of the class. When more than one class of veterans is conducted 
 in a county or community, a joint council consisting of representatives 
 from the several classes is sometimes employed. These joint councils 
 are useful in planning activities in which the classes may join. Farmer- 
 trainers are sometimes asked to meet with, or to serve on, veterans' 
 councils. 
 
 There is general recognition that the veterans should share increas- 
 ingly in planning their own training programs. They may be inducted 
 into participation by increasing their membership in county or com- 
 munity councils, or by providing veterans' councils, or in both of 
 these ways. 
 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 57 
 
 Councils for Young Farmers' Classes 
 
 Councils for young farmers' classes are organized about as other 
 councils for adult classes. The members are, of course, chosen from 
 those who attend these classes. A special situation arises when young 
 men and young women have their separate classes in agriculture and 
 home economics but join in certain educational and recreational activi- 
 ties. In these cases a general council for both classes may be provided 
 which would be made up of the members of the two separate councils. 
 Another arrangement is to provide a council for each class and to leave 
 the joint activities to an organization set up by the students. 
 
 Adult Education Councils 
 
 In certain communities there are general programs of adult educa- 
 tion in which several school departments are involved. 
 
 Perhaps the best example of a general adult education council in a 
 rural community is to be found at Sac City, Iowa. This council has been 
 in successful operation since 1933. For adult education purposes the 
 community is divided into four groups: farm men, farm women, town 
 men, and town women. Each of these groups has a council of ten to 
 plan special programs for its group and also to make suggestions as to 
 classes and activities which might be of interest to the entire com- 
 munity. An executive committee for the total program of adult educa- 
 tion consists of the chairman of each of these groups, the superin- 
 tendent of schools, the principal of the high school, and the teacher of 
 agriculture (who is the director of adult education in the school 
 system). This grouping of laymen and professional men in the execu- 
 tive committee is confusing and probably undesirable. It would seem 
 better to have an advisory committee of participants in the adult pro- 
 gram with whom the school men would confer. 
 
 It is certainly desirable that, when several departments of a school 
 have adult education programs, there be some attempt to coordinate 
 their activities. It is highly desirable, too, that these general programs 
 of adult education develop in our schools. Vocational agriculture often 
 leads the way in adult education in rural communities, but its program 
 should not be the only one and it should not be segregated from other 
 adult programs. 
 
 F. F. A. Councils 
 
 Boys in F.F.A. chapters need the guidance and inspiration of adults. 
 Other successful organizations for boys and girls commonly have 
 adult committees. The Scouts employ troop committees; 4-H Clubs 
 have county club committees; and the Y-Boys organization uses ad- 
 
58 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 visory committees. Since the F.F.A. is fast becoming an integral part 
 of vocational agriculture in the high school, an advisory council for the 
 F.F.A. could be advisory with respect to the entire high school program. 
 It could be especially helpful in promoting supervised practice in voca- 
 tional agriculture, which is an important interest of the F.F.A. One 
 way of getting an F.F.A. advisory group established is to appoint a 
 committee of the departmental council to serve. This committee should 
 be chosen in consultation with the executive committee of the F.F.A. 
 and should be fully acceptable to the F.F.A. members. 
 
 Some F.F.A. councils have been constituted out of the "honorary 
 farmers" of a chapter. These honorary farmers are elected by the boys 
 on the basis of their service to the chapter. There has been some feel- 
 ing that their services tend to decline after they have received this 
 recognition and that something should be done to make them even 
 more useful to a chapter after their election. Perhaps the best example 
 of this type of council is to be found at Norman, Oklahoma, reported 
 on the basis of a visit by the author there in October, 1946. This report 
 has been approved by E. F. Foreman, chapter adviser. 
 
 The Norman F.F.A. council was founded in 1940. At that time there 
 were 28 honorary farmers eligible for membership. At present the 
 council has 50 members. Six meetings of the council were held from 
 September, 1945, through October, 1946: 
 
 September, 1945 — Discussion of the national chapter contest, of entering the local 
 chapter in it, and ways in which the council members might help the chapter 
 in earning a "gold emblem" award in the contest. 
 
 October, 1945 — Proposed chapter program presented by boys. Advice of council 
 secured. Discussion of ways in which council might help execute the program. 
 
 January, 1946 — Progress report by chapter and adviser. 
 
 March, 1946 — Another progress report. Observation by council members of new 
 hotbeds and cold frames and new livestock-spraying equipment. 
 
 September, 1946 — Discussion of county fair and its needs. 
 
 October, 1946 — Discussion of arrangements for trip to National F.F.A. Conven- 
 tion at Kansas City, Missouri, where the chapter received the "gold emblem" 
 award. 
 
 With the help of the council, $1,032 was raised to pay the expenses 
 of every chapter member for the Kansas City trip. Twenty-eight of the 
 council members accompanied the boys on the trip. The chapter raised 
 a budget of $2,214.03 for its year's work in addition to the funds used 
 for the Kansas City trip. 
 
 In addition to his F.F.A. council, Mr. Foreman has an advisory 
 council of eleven for his adult classes. 
 
 Each member of the Norman board of education is, ex officio, an 
 honorary farmer, so that there is close coordination between the board 
 and the F.F.A. council. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 59 
 
 One F.F.A. adviser has reported an F.F.A. council composed of 
 the members of a local service club. While many of the advantages of 
 a council could be gained from such arrangement, it appears to be a 
 very questionable one, since the members of the service club would be 
 chosen for reasons other than their interest in, or value to, the chapter 
 and since their selection and their activities would be largely outside 
 the influence of the school administration. Furthermore, one would 
 expect jealousy on the part of other community organizations because 
 a school organization had been turned over to a private group for 
 sponsorship. 
 
 Some of the activities in which an F.F.A. council might engage are 
 the following: 
 
 (1) Helping a chapter to plan a program of work and to secure 
 community support in carrying it out. 
 
 (2) Helping the chapter in the community by arranging for the 
 chapter to participate in community events along with other organiza- 
 tions, by interesting other people in the chapter, and by working out 
 better relationships with other groups. 
 
 (3) Accompanying groups on trips to fairs, to state and national 
 meetings, and on camping trips and other tours. 
 
 (4) Assisting in the provision of transportation for F.F.A. boys. 
 
 (5) Becoming familiar with the supervised practice of the boys and 
 giving them encouragement in it. 
 
 (6) Assisting with F.F.A. recreation. 
 
 (7) Consulting with F.F.A. committees and helping to train chapter 
 officers. 
 
 May Too Many Councils and Committees Be Organized? 
 
 It is obvious that the organization of councils within a community 
 may become very complex, may involve a great many persons, and 
 may require a large amount of time on the part of the teacher of 
 agriculture. The best answer to this objection seems to be that there 
 is very little danger of interesting too many people in the work of the 
 agricultural department. Since councils are representative, only a small 
 fraction of the people of a community potentially affected by the de- 
 partment would ever be included as council members. 
 
 A word of warning on this point may, however, be necessary. 
 Complex and comprehensive machinery should not be set up at first. 
 Starting with a general council, one may develop additional commit- 
 tees as needed. After a general council has learned to do its work well, 
 
60 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 its members may be used in new committees so that the teacher will 
 not have to attend every meeting of every committee or even have a 
 large amount of responsibility for the work of every committee. It 
 may take ten years of slow and careful development to provide all of 
 the functioning committees a large community would need. It is perhaps 
 needless to say that no committees should be formed unless they are 
 vitally needed and unless there are arrangements for guiding their 
 work very carefully during the first few years of their existence. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 OBSTACLES AND LIMITATIONS IN THE USE OF 
 
 COUNCILS 
 
 No one should gain the impression from this publication that only 
 happiness and success await the teacher of agriculture who uses ad- 
 visory councils. It is true that serious difficulties have been rare. If 
 there has been failure in the use of a council, the principal results 
 have been that the council has been dropped and its value to the pro- 
 gram has been sacrificed. In any enterprise involving human beings, 
 there will be trials and tribulations arising out of suspicions, jealousies, 
 prejudices, and fears. Councils are no exception. Ability in working 
 with people, essential in a teacher, is the principal attribute the teacher 
 needs in working with advisory councils. It may be well to set down 
 some of the specific obstacles and limitations which have been en- 
 countered, so that those considering the use of councils may be fore- 
 warned and prepared. 
 
 The Teacher 
 
 The teacher of agriculture is the principal factor leading to council 
 success or failure. Some teachers seem to be entirely unsuited for work 
 with councils and probably should not attempt to use them. A teacher 
 who works effectively with councils is one who has a preference for 
 remaining in the background, who is not too talkative, who has a genu- 
 ine liking for democratic procedures, who wants help from others, and 
 who recognizes that the school belongs to the public and not to him 
 personally. He can not be too independent and he must not be domi- 
 neering. Some teachers seem to avoid the use of councils because they 
 are afraid that councils will pile more work on the department. Their 
 fears are justified; however, councils may also assist in getting a more 
 satisfactory schedule for the teacher or in providing helpers for him. 
 Councils tend to grow quite fond of their teachers and to treat them 
 with much consideration. 
 
 Teachers must be trained to use councils just as they are trained for 
 anything else. Training of teachers in this respect seems largely to have 
 been neglected. Training teachers for the successful use of councils 
 involves: 
 
 (1) Developing with them a comprehensive and systematic philoso- 
 phy of agricultural education which emphasizes school-community re- 
 lationships and democratic procedures. 
 
 61 
 
62 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 (2) Setting aside adequate time in courses in agricultural educa- 
 tion to develop with prospective teachers concepts and practices such 
 as those treated in this publication. 
 
 (3) Providing first-hand contacts with councils through class and 
 group observation of councils at work and, especially, through oppor- 
 tunities to work with councils in the centers in which practice teaching 
 is conducted. 
 
 (4) Assisting beginning teachers in setting up their first councils. 
 (A tactful teacher-trainer may be of much help in sitting in the second 
 or third meeting of a newly established council and in occasional sub- 
 sequent meetings. The experience may be worth even more to the 
 teacher-trainer than to the teacher since it gives him contacts with rep- 
 resentative farmers which he may not otherwise secure.) 
 
 The School Administrator 
 
 Some school administrators have come to believe that they should 
 administer their schools from the top down as an industry or business 
 is usually administered. They have little use for laymen in school man- 
 agement; even a lay board of education is to them a necessary evil. 
 Some administrators have had unfortunate experiences with parent- 
 teachers' organizations and with laymen's pressure groups of various 
 sorts. Advisory councils are not used in other departments of the 
 school, and it may seem inadvisable to provide an exception for the 
 agricultural department. Some administrators have not supported their 
 councils as they might and have not gained from them the personal 
 benefit inherent in them because they have not found time to attend 
 council meetings. There is great advantage to the departmental council 
 if the school administrator can meet rather regularly with it, and the 
 administrator may occasionally be able to sit with some of the special 
 committees. The interest of administrators in attending council and 
 committee meetings will be increased if they are given responsibilities 
 in connection with these meetings, such as conferring with certain 
 groups, reporting on particular projects, or talking with council mem- 
 bers regarding general school conditions which affect the work in agri- 
 culture. 
 
 The Board of Education 
 
 Boards of education are occasionally found reluctant to approve an 
 arrangement for a council. The idea is usually new to them. They 
 wonder whether there may be conflict between the council and the 
 board. When the relationships between the council and the board are 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 63 
 
 set up as proposed in this publication, their objections are usually with- 
 drawn. Often they welcome the opportunity of getting the advice of 
 representative farmers in guiding the agricultural department since the 
 board's principal purpose may be to provide an educational service ac- 
 ceptable to the farmers. 
 
 The Council Members 
 
 A few councils have been eliminated because the initial selection 
 of council members was unfortunate. The best safeguard against the 
 selection of misfits is to consult as many people as possible about pro- 
 spective members and to avoid persons about whom some of the people 
 of the community have doubts. When inactive council members have 
 been chosen, they should be eliminated at the earliest opportunity. The 
 council itself can pass rules to eliminate inactive members. Such rules 
 should be enacted early so that no personalities are involved. It may 
 be desirable at first to set a term of one year only for council members, 
 so that the council can be reorganized at the end of the first year and its 
 further deterioration can be prevented. 
 
 Finding Sufficient Profitable Work to Do 
 
 If councils languish because they can not find appropriate work to 
 do, it is usually the fault of an unimaginative teacher of agriculture who 
 does not see the full possibilities of his work. If the teacher lacks 
 imagination, he can rely on the more imaginative members of the 
 council who frequently advance very good ideas. 
 
 Hesitancy in Calling Busy Men Together for Meetings 
 
 Sometimes the teacher of agriculture depreciates the importance of 
 his own work and overemphasizes the importance of the work his 
 council members are doing outside council meetings. Feeling as he does, 
 he hesitates to suggest enough council meetings to make the council a 
 vital group. Certainly the direction of an effective and comprehensive 
 program of agricultural education in an agricultural community is one 
 of the most important activities in which anyone in the community can 
 engage. Many laymen see a claim by the school on their services as a 
 first claim. Men of this type can be selected and, when selected, they 
 should be called upon frequently. 
 
 Council Complacency 
 
 Especially in recent years, when farm prices have been good, many 
 farmers have become very complacent about things as they are. Never 
 having been in contact with another agricultural department and having 
 
64 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 perhaps been told that theirs is the best in the state, they question 
 whether it needs to be changed in any way. Such an attitude is fatal to 
 council effectiveness. Good council work begins with a teacher of agri- 
 culture who is dissatisfied with things as they are. Opportunities should 
 be provided for council members to see what other schools are doing. 
 Persons can be brought in from the outside to awaken and stimulate 
 the council members. An occasional systematic evaluation of the de- 
 partment in which council members, the teacher, and the school admin- 
 istrator share with outsiders is a helpful way to counteract complacency. 
 Much can be done to interest council members in their work and 
 to make them see the needs of the community and the possible contri- 
 butions of the agricultural department if the teacher of agriculture will 
 spend considerable time in individual conferences with council members 
 on their farms and elsewhere. 
 
 Community Rivalries 
 
 Sometimes it seems rather hopeless to organize a council, because 
 the community is split into rival camps. There may be cases where 
 the organization of a council representative of all groups is impossible. 
 We have had some fortunate experiences, however, in organizing such 
 councils in split communities. It is usually possible to pick nine persons 
 in a community who are above the meaner aspects of community fac- 
 tionalism. If these people are well regarded by the factions with which 
 they are affiliated and if they can work together in a council, an im- 
 portant step has been taken toward integrating the community. In one 
 community group an important minority, which for generations had 
 remained aloof from the school and community, received almost its first 
 recognition when members proportional to their numbers were invited 
 to serve on the departmental council. This first step has led to many 
 other steps toward full integration of the group into the life of the 
 school and community. Thus far no case has been reported in which 
 community rivalries have broken out in an advisory council or inter- 
 fered seriously with a council's work. 
 
 Spreading the Program Too Thinly 
 
 Because councils are typically interested in the agricultural educa- 
 tion of all of the people in the community and are especially conscious 
 of the needs for education of some of their fellow adults, they may en- 
 vision a program broader than can be accomplished with the staff and 
 facilities at hand. Sometimes they become more interested in a "big" 
 program than in a good program. They should be constantly warned to 
 undertake only what can be done well. 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 65 
 
 Overemphasis of Adult Work 
 
 Councils have been most effective in extending work with adults. 
 Because their contacts are largely with adults and because there are 
 many adults in every community, the teacher may be drawn away from 
 his high school program in an effort to serve the adults. Probably no 
 teacher has actually been very much out of balance in this respect, 
 since such teachers have traditionally given most or all of their time to 
 boys, but some people in some communities have objected to extensive 
 work with adults and have claimed neglect of the high school boys. 
 The wise teacher will maintain an interest in all phases of a well- 
 balanced program of agricultural education and will work to keep the 
 interests of his council members balanced. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 COUNCILS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN RELA- 
 TION TO GENERAL SCHOOL POLICIES 
 
 Some people believe that the use of councils in agricultural education is 
 one more evidence of the tendency of persons in vocational education to 
 separate themselves from the public school system and to set up special 
 arrangements for administering their work. They have become alert to 
 these tendencies because they recall that for many years there was a 
 Federal Board for Vocational Education separate from the U.S. Office 
 of Education, because there are separate boards for vocational educa- 
 tion in every state, and because one state (Wisconsin) provides for 
 separate local boards for vocational education. 
 
 Councils as a Means of Averting a Dual System of Public 
 Education 
 
 Actually, advisory councils are a means of preventing the establish- 
 ment of separate administrative machinery for vocational education. 
 Those who argue for separate local boards can fairly point out that 
 vocational education is in many respects different from the traditional 
 programs of the schools, and that it is sometimes badly treated or 
 largely neglected by school boards and school administrators. The 
 remedy is not, however, to resort to a dual system of public education. 
 The special and sympathetic treatment vocational education requires 
 can be secured to a considerable extent through the use of advisory 
 councils of laymen deeply interested in the field. These councils must, 
 of course, be definitely a part of the existing administration of the 
 school. 
 
 Unless the schools set up adequate programs of vocational educa- 
 tion, including comprehensive programs of vocational education for 
 adults, they can expect that facilities for this purpose, publicly financed 
 and managed, will be set up outside the schools. It seems wiser to make 
 some special arrangements for vocational education within our schools 
 than to risk the further development of separate and rival public educa- 
 tional agencies. 
 
 We have already ample evidence in agricultural education as to how 
 separate programs develop. During the first third of this century, most 
 of our public schools refused to participate in agricultural education. 
 As a result, the farmers turned elsewhere for help and programs sepa- 
 rate from the schools developed under the extension services of our 
 agricultural colleges. It was recognized that educational programs for 
 farmers would have to be carried out under the auspices of local 
 
 66 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 67 
 
 farmers and so local organizations of farmers were set up as sponsoring 
 agencies. In Illinois, the local organization is the County Farm Bureau. 
 Fortunately, the farm bureaus in Illinois have also been interested in 
 the teaching of vocational agriculture in the schools. Instead of "hog- 
 ging" the field, as some separate agencies may wish to do and as the 
 farm bureaus in some states have done, the county farm bureaus in 
 Illinois have been willing to share their responsibilities with the schools. 
 It is clear that a school program is no more likely to thrive without 
 farmer support than an extension program would have. If the schools 
 wish to get the support of farmers, they must establish an arrangement 
 suited to school conditions whereby farmers may express themselves 
 about school policies and, in an organized way, support the work of 
 the schools. The advisory council seems to be the most effective means, 
 adapted to school use, which has yet been discovered for accomplishing 
 these purposes. 
 
 Use of Advisory Councils May Be School-wide 
 
 There seems to be no reason why the use of advisory councils should 
 be confined to the vocational fields. If they are necessary in providing a 
 vital and functional program of vocational education, they may also 
 be necessary in providing programs in health education, social educa- 
 tion, and education for leisure-time activities which are vital and func- 
 tional. Programs in these areas are often anemic and nonfunctional 
 because they lack community support and because they are not planned 
 realistically to meet community needs. 
 
 If our schools become increasingly democratic, we can expect that 
 more use will be made of advisory councils. In a democracy decisions 
 are made by the people affected by them. All of the people of a com- 
 munity are affected by decisions regarding school policies. Schemes 
 for democratizing the schools which provide for increased participation 
 in policy-making by pupils and teachers go only a part of the way 
 toward democracy in education. It is true that the people of a com- 
 munity have a chance to express themselves through their boards of 
 education, but this is an entirely inadeqeuate arrangement, and the 
 effect of public opinion on the schools is often very slight when this is 
 the only provision made. 
 
 In using a system of advisory councils in the schools, contact would 
 be made with a considerable number of representative individuals, 
 including persons with and without children in school. Such a step 
 should not be taken unless the school honestly desires to become a 
 public school serving the entire public without discrimination. Councils 
 truly representative of the community can be expected to demand 
 
68 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 types of education which the schools do not offer and service to many 
 groups, principally adult, whom many schools now make no attempt to 
 reach. A basic revolution in school practices could be anticipated if 
 councils were used for all parts of a school system with as much effect 
 as they have been used in some schools in agricultural education. 
 
 The schools have not been entirely successful in avoiding the influ- 
 ence of laymen even when this seems to have been their purpose. Pres- 
 sure groups frequently arise, sometimes with proposals that are not 
 sound or helpful because their contacts with the schools are too limited 
 to enable them to make good recommendations. The way to prevent 
 the evolution of destructive pressure groups and "school fights" which 
 involve the whole community appears to be the development of councils 
 which include a large and representative group of laymen with whom 
 school officials and teachers consult continuously and systematically. 
 In no other way can we expect the community generally to be well 
 enough informed to be able to express itself helpfully about school 
 matters. 
 
 Our Public Schools Need to Regain Their Contacts 
 With the Public 
 
 We are hearing much these days about the sad plight of the schools 
 and their teachers. Something approaching a breakdown of public 
 education is occurring in some parts of the country. Public understand- 
 ing and support is needed in order to remedy these conditions. Perhaps 
 the situation is largely due to the neglect of the public by the schools. 
 It is well to remember that public acceptance of the schools which led 
 to their development in this country to a status far higher than public 
 schools have attained in any other country grew out of close contacts 
 between the public and its schools and a feeling on the part of the 
 public that the schools were really their schools. 
 
 The policies governing our rural schools in the days of the pioneers 
 were largely developed in annual "school meetings" which were at- 
 tended by a high percentage of the voters. Discussions of the "town- 
 meeting" type preceded the adoption of these policies. Between "school 
 meetings" the boards of education managed the schools very directly, 
 supervising the teachers, providing facilities, and testing the accom- 
 plishments of the pupils. Many school buildings were literally built by 
 the people of their districts. School districts were small and it was easy 
 for an individual in the district to find out what was going on at the 
 school and to make his opinions effective in school management. There 
 have been several developments which have weaned the public away 
 from the schools: (1) the rise of large school systems and large school 
 
Using Advisory Councils in Agricultural Education 69 
 
 districts with central administrations far removed from the people; 
 (2) the development of professionally trained school administrators, 
 many of whom have come to believe that a school should be managed 
 by the top executive and who tend to think of the schools as "their 
 schools"; (3) the evolution of a teaching profession with conceptions 
 of "academic freedom," a disposition to discredit the layman's knowl- 
 edge of education, and resentment against lay interference; (4) the 
 accumulation of scientific knowledge about certain phases of teaching, 
 which laymen do not always share, and which teachers feel obligated to 
 respect, whatever the opinions of laymen. 
 
 In at least one large city school system parents have been barred 
 from visiting the schools their children attend. Teachers have largely 
 lost their contacts with laymen and find it difficult to talk with them 
 about school matters; often the)' are urged or ordered not to talk with 
 the patrons about school affairs. Laymen, who find it easy to disregard 
 the schools, find another reason for neglecting them in the apparent 
 desire of school people to keep them out of the schools and away from 
 school affairs. 
 
 The most glaring result of this situation has been the antagonism 
 or indifference of the public toward the raising of adequate funds for 
 school support. Since about 60 per cent of the voters have no children 
 in schools and receive no direct benefit from them except in schools 
 offering programs of adult education, and since the 40 per cent with 
 children in school have often been led to believe that they have no part 
 in school affairs, it is not surprising that the voters are often reluctant 
 to spend money for school purposes. 
 
 One of the fundamental reasons for the lack of coordination of 
 school and community is a common feeling on the part of laymen and 
 teachers that education is accomplished in schools. Of course, educa- 
 tion goes on continuously, in and out of school. Laymen, as well as 
 teachers, are educators and some of them, particularly some parents 
 and some employers, are excellent teachers. If we could recognize that 
 education is a function in which all share and that most of the func- 
 tional education anyone receives he gets out of school, teachers and 
 laymen could join in their common task and each could contribute to 
 the work of the other. 
 
 The American public schools can retain considerable prestige and 
 public support for a time, though probably not enough to make the 
 advances they should be making, because of the momentum they 
 gained during the period when they worked closely with the public. 
 They can not expect to retain public favor indefinitely unless they find 
 modern means of working with the public which will take the place of 
 the methods which contributed so much in the pioneering days of public 
 
70 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 education in this country. We do not want to go back to small districts 
 with their many boards of education. We want teachers kept free to 
 teach what they know to be true, using the best methods available to 
 them. We want school administrators who have not abdicated their 
 proper functions to laymen. Advisory councils provide the best arrange- 
 ment for getting what we want and avoiding what we do not want from 
 our lay constituents. 
 
 Some re-education of laymen will be necessary if they are to serve 
 well as council members. They must recognize that their relationship 
 to teachers is something like the relationship of an individual to his 
 physician. Laymen are free to employ the physicians of their choice, 
 but they are not free to dictate the methods physicians will use. Some 
 laymen will have to give up their belief that they may properly employ 
 teachers to confirm children in their own ignorances and prejudices. 
 
 Why Councils Have Often Developed First 
 in Agricultural Education 
 
 It is not surprising that the use of councils has been more common 
 in agricultural education than in most other school fields. Several 
 factors in agricultural education have predisposed toward their use: 
 
 (1) Results from agricultural education appear in the community 
 if they appear at all. The public is able to judge these outcomes and to 
 express fair and capable opinions about the way the agricultural de- 
 partment of the school is managed. 
 
 (2) Farmers, perhaps more than other people, are inclined toward 
 democratic practices. It is hard to get their support for any venture 
 which they or their representatives do not share in planning. 
 
 (3) There has been recognition in agricultural education that school 
 and community join in the work to be done. "Supervised practice" in 
 farming, one of the most important parts of agricultural education, 
 takes place on farms and under the joint direction of teachers and 
 parents. Teachers of agriculture learned early that results can not be 
 secured with children without the support of parents and other adults. 
 
 (4) Teachers of agriculture work with adults; until they began to 
 confer with representative adults in councils, few farmers attended 
 their classes; once councils were used, there was an immediate response 
 and attendance at adult classes in agriculture has grown by leaps and 
 bounds. 
 
 All these factors would come into play in any other school subject 
 or activity if teachers were expected to get results with adults and 
 children which are evident outside the school. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 
 
 Advisory councils have been in use in agricultural education almost as 
 long as agriculture has been taught in our secondary schools. Their use 
 has. however, been sporadic, and often the functions of these councils 
 have been much more limited than they might well have been. Sur- 
 prisingly little study has been made of the use of advisory councils. 
 Little has been taught about them to teachers and prospective teachers 
 of agriculture. There is a body of tested information on the subject, 
 however, which is summarized in this publication. Some of the points 
 which stand out are the following: 
 
 (1) Many and varied uses of advisor}- councils have been dis- 
 covered. Many types of councils have proved their worth. 
 
 (2) A general council for the agricultural department is needed 
 and should be established first. Other councils or committees may 
 grow out of, and supplement, the departmental council. 
 
 (3) Advisory councils are almost essential to successful work with 
 adult farmers. They are very valuable in F.F.A. work and in providing 
 -supervised practice for high school boys. They are useful in planning 
 the class work in high school agriculture. 
 
 (4) Councils can be managed so that they do not interfere with 
 the board of education or the central administration of a school. Xo 
 serious difficulties have arisen in the use of councils except that they 
 are often less used than they might be and, because of disuse, they 
 sometimes become unimportant and are discontinued. 
 
 (5) It is possible to get very good persons to serve on councils and 
 to give considerable amounts of time without remuneration even for the 
 expenses involved. 
 
 (6) Although councils have often been considered valuable only for 
 new teachers or for teachers new to their communities, they are very 
 helpful to any teacher or department at any time. They may be espe- 
 cially useful to a teacher who has long served in one position and who 
 has tended to ''get into a rut." 
 
 (7) A council should be a definitely organized group with its own 
 officers and committees, with regularly scheduled meetings, an annual 
 program of work, and recorded minutes. While the teacher and the 
 school administrator can do much to facilitate the work of a council, 
 they must avoid being the central figures at council meetings. 
 
 (8) Xew uses of councils are continually being discovered. There 
 should be further investigation of their possibilities in connection with 
 
 71 
 
72 Bulletin No. 63 
 
 the F.F.A. and other phases of the high school program, in evaluating 
 the work of an agriculture department, and in coordinating the activi- 
 ties of other agencies with those of the school. 
 
 (9) Teachers of agriculture and school administrators should be 
 taught how to use councils. They should have an opportunity to observe 
 councils in action. Practice teaching for prospective teachers of agri- 
 culture should, if possible, be provided in communities in which it is 
 possible for student teachers to work with councils. 
 
 There can be no denial that the work that councils do is very 
 important in agricultural education. We can expect that better ways 
 of getting this work done by councils will be found. It may be that 
 we shall sometime cease to use councils. Our emphasis should always 
 be on the functions to be performed, and no machinery for performing 
 these functions should be perpetuated after it has ceased to be the best 
 means of doing a job. The current functions of advisory councils have 
 been described in Chapter IV. Such a list of functions, or a list which 
 has been revised and improved, can guide us in determining whether 
 or not we need advisory councils and in planning their organization 
 and use. 
 
Appendix 
 References on Advisory Councils 
 
 Adams, J. B. "The Advisory Board," Special Activities in Agricultural Education. 
 
 Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Board for Vocational Education, Bulletin 
 
 No. 29, June, 1923, pp. 82-85. 
 Adult Education Handbook for Iowa Schools. Des Moines, Iowa: Iowa State 
 
 Department of Public Instruction, 1947, 22 pp. 
 The Advisory Council for a Department of Vocational Agriculture. Washington, 
 
 D.C.: Agricultural Education Service, U. S. Office of Education, C.L. 2617, 
 
 1947, 8 pp. 
 Alinsky, Saul. "Native Leadership," Reveille for Radicals. Chicago: University 
 
 of Chicago Press, 1946, 228 pp. 
 Black, S. C, Jr. "Advisory Committees and Their Function in Building Business 
 
 Education Programs," National Business Education Quarterly, 14:49-50, 
 
 March, 1946. 
 Campbell, Clyde M. "Illinois Communities Set Up Advisory Boards," School 
 
 Executive, 65:52-53, May, 1946. 
 Charters, W. W. "Techniques of Giving and Taking Advice," Educational Record, 
 
 28:5-20, January, 1947. 
 Dalbey, C. W. "The Advisory Council: Key to Success With Adult Classes," 
 
 Agricultural Education Magazine, 13:68, 99, October, 1940. 
 "Directory of Councils," Adult Education Journal, 4:21-23, January, 1945. 
 Godwin, W. R. "Useful Technic in Democratic Procedure," American School 
 
 Board Journal, 111:28-29, November, 1945. 
 Grieder, Calvin. "Citizens' Advisory Committees — Have They a Rightful 
 
 Place? Nation's Schools, 28:29-30, September, 1941. 
 Hamlin, Herbert M. "Some Illustrations of Effective Use of Farms and Farmers 
 
 in Teaching Agriculture," Vocational Education Magazine, 1:339-341, January, 
 
 1923. 
 
 "Safeguards in the Use of Advisory Councils," American School Board 
 
 Journal, 110:31-32, May, 1945. (Also in Agricultural Education Magazine, 
 18:124-125, January, 1946.) 
 
 "The Advisory Council," The Community Program of Agricultural 
 
 Education, Chapter 3. (Out of print.) 
 
 "Advisory Councils for Agricultural Education," American Vocational 
 
 Journal, 21:25-26, October, 1946. 
 Hanson, Earl H. "Should Non-Elected Lay Advisory Groups Organize About 
 
 the School Boards?" American School Board Journal, 109:23-24, October, 1944. 
 Hodgson, Paul M. "Importance of Organizing and Guiding Agricultural Advisory 
 
 Committees for Rural War Production Training Program," Agricultural Edu- 
 cation Magazine, 16:32-33, August, 1943. 
 Kotinsky, Ruth. Adult Education Councils. New York: American Association 
 
 for Adult Education, 1940, 172 pp. 
 Leonard, J. Paul. "Characteristics of the Secondary School for a Nation at 
 
 Peace," School Executive, 63:34-35, July, 1944. 
 Organization and Function of Representative Advisory Committees for Trade and 
 
 Industrial Education. Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State Board of Control 
 
 for Vocational Education, 1940, 16 pp. 
 Rogers, Virgil M. "Educational Advisory Council Helps," American School Board 
 
 Journal, 111:34, July, 1945. 
 
 73 
 
74 Bulletin- No. 63 
 
 Sanderson, Dwight. Leadership for Rural Life. New York: Association Press, 
 1940, 127 pp. 
 
 Schroeder, Walter. A Case Study of the Development and Evaluation of a Pro- 
 gram of Agricultural Improvement for Adults in the Olivet Community. 
 Master's Thesis, Michigan State College, 1947, 185 pp. 
 
 Stimson, Rufus W. Vocational Agricultural Education by Home Projects. New 
 York: Macmillan Co., 1919, 468 pp. 
 
 Stoughton, W. F. "The Advisory Board," Vocational Education Magazine, 2:981, 
 October, 1924. 
 
 Stuckey, Wilbur E. An Investigation in the Use of Advisory Councils for Vo- 
 cational Agriculture in Ohio. Master's Thesis, Ohio State University, 1947. 
 
 Williams, C. V. "Relation of the Teacher of Vocational Agriculture to His Com- 
 munity," Vocational Education Magazine, 1:412-416, February, 1923. 
 
,. 
 
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