I am starting this visit with you today by asking a question. The question is - Did you ever have a teacher that presented his subject so fascinatingly and aroused your curiosity to such a high pitch that you asked for extra time outside of regular hours - before breakfast perhaps - in order to have more class work?

I spent Monday with a teacher whose class made just such a request. It happened at the winter shortcourse in Ames in 1902. P.G. Holden had been loaned by the Funk Bros. Seed Corn Company in Illinois to conduct the corn work at the Iowa State College winter shortcourse.

The first farmers’ shortcourse had been held at the college the previous year in 1901 and had confined its program to a study of livestock. The shortcourse was successful. Farmers are always interested in livestock. But corn - could corn be made attractive enough to interest a farmer audience. That was the question. Farmers might get up and walk out of the class if the subject discussed wasn't interesting. They didn't have to pass examinations. Anyway the college people decided to give corn a trial. However, they were cautious and only allotted a small amount of time daily to the study of corn.

But the farmers at the Ames shortcourse in 1902 under the inspiration of a great teacher didn't walk out of the class. On the other hand they actually complained about not having enough time to study corn. They wanted more time. And so they got together as people do when they have complaints and appointed a committee that met with Mr. Holden and asked him if he could possibly give them more time. He jokingly replied that the program was made up and couldn't be changed but that he could meet them any time between two o'clock and eight in the morning.

Later, in Mr. Holden's words - "the committee came to me and rather hesitatingly wanted to know if 5 o'clock in the morning would be all right." "Certainly", I said, "But be sure to bring lanterns (College electric lights were not on at that time) and bring your breakfast lunch and be on time." The next morning they were there at 5 a.m. with lanterns and lunches and they were there every morning until the close of the shortcourse. Remember, too, that these early shortcourses lasted two full weeks.

This was the beginning of Prof. P.G. Holden's great work in teaching better corn and also in teacher better home to the people of Iowa.

Prof. Holden is now in his 83rd year. He can't run the 100 yards quite as fast as he used too, nor wrestle as well as he once did but he is dynamic and he is always the teacher. He was made that way. Some of you youngsters that haven't yet passed fifty years and think old age is ultra conservative and crabbed ought to have a chance to meet Mr. Holden.

I am talking about Mr. Holden today because of the truly great service he gave to Iowa. He figuratively set the state on fire from 1902 to 1912 not only for better corn but also for better homes, better schools, better people. No one in the U.S. did more to create and develop the Extension Service than did Prof. Holden. He was a wise and original pioneer in developing the machinery needed in order to reach the masses of people with educational helps.

Holden was the most contagiously interesting and instructive man that I have ever met. It mattered not whether he was talking to farm people, city people, bank presidents, women's clubs or any other group they all listened intently. He had a most important message for all and what is more important all recognized its value.

Holden's early creative and pioneering work in taking education to the people has never been fully recognized and needs to be better understood. I will give a few illustrations.

In 1903 Prof. Holden established county demonstration farms in order to carry out crop experiments, principally with corn, under local conditions. The plan called for land and funds to be furnished by the county board of supervisors. It also required organization to get the job done because there was no law requiring county boards to furnish either land or money and these boards had to be convinced. In this early work Holden held for local support and actual local cooperation in demonstrational and educational work. This general plan is the foundation today upon which all of our most successful extension educational work is built. This early plan required much time and money on the part of local people but it laid a sound basis for future county agent work. These early demonstration farms, principally with corn, did an immense amount of good. There were 10 county stations in operation at the time the extension service was created by the legislature in 1906.

In 1905 Prof. Holden held at Red Oak, Iowa the first local shortcourse away from the college. The local shortcourse plan required the people to organize and underwrite the expenses of the course including the salaries of many of the helpers and teachers. These early shortcourses were a truly great educational success. There were held in every county and helped lay the foundation for the great agricultural organization movement that has since swept over Iowa.

In 1904-05 Holden conducted educational corn trains to meet a serious seed corn situation. Lectures were given in 670 towns and 96 of the counties were reached. Educational trains of all kinds - corn, oats, and livestock were largely used in the early years of Extension. People came and kept on coming to these trains. Through the help of trains, people were reached with better agricultural practices in every community and hamlet of the state. But in order to have an educational train stop at any station it was necessary for the local people to sign a petition requesting that the train stop and also agreeing to help make it successful. Here again the burden of getting the job done was placed upon the local people.

In 1906 many people among whom Uncle Henry Wallace was very prominent supported legislation to establish a special department for Extension work at the College. Thus out of Holden's early work with shortcourses, county demonstrations and trains grew the Iowa Agricultural Extension Act of 1906. Many colleges at that time were giving help to farmers institutes nature study in schools, etc., but I believe Iowa was the first state to enact special legislation providing for extension work and making it a distinct department of the college.

Holden was not only a great scientific teacher and sound in his organization methods but he was also a great inspirational teacher. He had the faculty of encouraging people to make greater efforts.

Homer Croy tells about Holden in his book Corn Country from which the following excepts are taken. Croy a farm boy in Missouri was with his mother attending an old time Chautauqua. The chairman announced that the first number on the program would be about corn. Says Croy ‘I wanted to get up and step out but I was trapped. I knew I could never get away from my mother and would have to stay and hear the man drone on about corn’..........

"A small man with a large beard came out - Prof. P.G. Holden. And danged if he wasn't holding a stalk of corn, the last thing in the world I wanted to see." ........ But later on says Croy, "I grew more and more fascinated. I was enthralled, I scarcely breathed. Corn wonderful corn."

Croy relates how he felt the next day. ....’The next day was cocklebur cutting. We went up and down the rows chopping out the burrs with hoes .....as hot work as there is outside of Hell. But it was all right. The spell was still upon me. I tackled those burrs with a vengeance. They were enemies on our wonderful God given corn. I slew them right and left. Indeed, I worked two or three days before I slipped back to normal. ....... Prof. Holden had opened a new world to me.’

Shortly after Prof. Holden came to Iowa there was a great increase of interest in teaching agriculture and home economics to boys and girls. Holden had been a country school teacher and also a county superintendent of schools. He had a most interesting and successful experience in teaching agriculture in schools and almost immediately associated himself with county superintendents and others in charge of rural schools in Iowa. Shortly several county superintendents of schools and school principals were testing corn by Holden's sawdust box method.

Cap Miller, County Superintendent of Schools in Keokuk County had Prof. Holden on three different occasions in 1904 to give instruction to county school teachers and rural children. Supt. Miller organized a county wide farm boys club, also a county wide Home Culture Club. He had local contests and took some 1400 of Keokuk county children, teachers, and parents on a special train to see the College at Ames.

Supt. Benson of Goldfield had corn brought in from different farms and tested by the pupils. Reports were sent back to the farmers. Later Benson became County Superintendent of Schools and organized various boys and girls agriculture and home clubs and extended his work throughout the entire county. He later became one of the national 4-H club leaders.

Miss Jessie Field (now Mrs. Shambaugh) taught nature study and corn growing to groups in the rural schools in Page County. She later graduated from college and became County Superintendent in Page County. Her work in Page County became famous for its Boys Corn Club. Demonstrations in judging corn and testing milk for butterfat were given by boys club members before farmers institutes and other meetings.

All three of the foregoing County Superintendents expressed their deep appreciation for the help and inspiration that they got from Prof. Holden. I will quote a few excerpts from a statement made by Miss Field under the title of "Prof. P.G. Holden An Inspired Leader for the Intelligent Use of Better Ways of Doing Every Day Tasks."

"He gave us vision - and tied that vision to everyday living and then showed us simple and intelligent ways for making the vision a reality."...

"Prof. Holden was the most successful person in his approach to people whom I have ever known." ......

"He carried the torch of better farming and better farm life high and he never failed to light the same torch for others who had a chance to know him."

The foregoing gives you a very brief description of some of the early work of Prof. P.G. Holden. How fortunate Iowa was to have had one of the greatest teachers of the twentieth century to lay the foundation for the mass education of rural people that was soon to follow.

In closing this brief statement I want to give you Holden's morning motto which he says he got from one of his early rural school teachers. The motto is .....

"This day I will beat my own record."

What a fine thing it would be if each one of us would strive each day to beat our own record.

Source: transcribed in its entirety from written script

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