EXHIBITS
Extension, Enterprise, and Education: The Legacy of Co-operatives and Cooperation in Utah: Utah State University Extension
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Utah State University Extension
Utah State University, originally named the Agricultural College of Utah, was founded in 1888 using funds from the Land-Grant College Act of 1862. This act endowed land to each state for the purpose of funding a land-grant institution which was to focus on agriculture and mechanic arts.[1] This focus invited students from farms and trades to come to school who never could have considered it previously. The Agricultural College of Utah pursued this mission of training students from all walks of life by creating extension services which would take training to the people.
Extended history of Utah Agricultural College
The interview with Arthur Anderson, a county agent, gives his explanation of the purpose of a county agent and how they were received by farmers.
“The Cooperative Extension Service is sponsored and financed jointly by federal, state, and county governments. There is a Cooperative Extension Service in the land grant institution of each state.
“The main functions of the Cooperative Extension Service are to develop leadership, resourcefulness, and initiative; to supply factual information for discovering and solving problems; and to help people become more efficient, increase their income, improve their home and community environment, and raise their standard of living. University Extension takes the findings of research to the people of the state and brings unsolved problems back to the research workers at the University.”[2]
“Carrying the principles of modern agriculture to the farmers always seemed important to me. Unused truth has little value. Farmers’ institute work, now known as agricultural extension work, was therefore begun and carried on with much vigor. As time permitted, with specialists from the Station staff, I travelled over the State discussing with groups of farmers their problems. While we taught them something, they in turn set our faces towards problems to be solved.
“They needed only to be convinced that we came as bearers of truth and that ‘book-farmers’ so-called had much to teach the pioneer who had to learn only through hard experience. Then, the old prejudices vanished.”
{In A Sunlit Land}