e way
of their rapid adaptation to vocational needs. It is probably best
that a certain class of them should stand primarily for intellectual
culture, as technical and agricultural schools stand for their
specialties, but the true university should be representative of all
the social interests of all the people in the State.

An illustration of what the university can do in social service for a
whole State occurs in the recent history of the University of
Wisconsin. It conceived its function to be not solely to educate
students who came for the full university course. It considered the
needs of the people of the State, and it planned to provide
information and intellectual stimulus for as wide a circle as
possible. It provided correspondence courses. It sent out a corps of
instructors to carry on extension courses. It made affiliations with
other State institutions. It reached all classes of the people and
touched all their social interests. It became especially useful to the
farmers. In spite of scepticism on the part of the people and some of
the university officers, those who had faith in the wider usefulness
of the university pushed their plan until they succeeded in organizing
a short winter course in agriculture for farmers' sons and then for
the older farmers, branched out into domestic courses for the women,
and even made provision for the interests of the boys and girls.
Reaching out still further, the university organized farmers' courses
in connection with the county agricultural schools, established
experiment stations, and encouraged the boys to enter local contests
for agricultural prizes. By these means the university has become
widely popular and has been exceedingly beneficial to the people of
the State.

139. =The Public Library.=--While the school stands out as the leading
educational institution of the rural community, it is by no means the
sole agency of culture. Alongside it is the library. Home libraries in
the country rarely contain books of value, either culturally or for
practical purposes. Circulating libraries of fiction are little
better. School libraries and village libraries that contain
well-selected literature are to be included among the desiderata of
every countryside. A few of the great books of all time belong there,
a small collection of current literature, including periodicals, and
an abundant literature on country life in all its phases. It is the
function of the library to in