Making for Southern Italy, Naples (in process of organization); and the high schools of agriculture (Milan, Perugia, Pisa), where, in addition to chemical and agricultural technology, the science and technique of cheese making are taught.

Intermediate schools and institutes comprise: The Royal School of Zootechny and Cheese Making at Reggio Emilia; the Dairy School attached to the Royal Demonstration School of Agriculture at Brescia; the Demonstration Institute of Zootechny and Cheese Making at Cuneo; the Agricultural Institute of Zootechny and Dairying of Rome, at Monterotondo; and the Demonstration School of Cheese Making at Bosa, Sardinia (in process of organization).

The elementary institutes and schools impart elementary instruction in cheese making by rapid, intensive courses of one month's duration, at the Zootechnical Institute at Palermo, and at the royal demonstrational schools at Scerni, Caluso, and Sassari.

There are also short courses in cheese making given in some of the more advanced schools teaching that subject, as at Lodi, where every year two courses of 100 days each are conducted for practical and theoretical instruction in cheese making.

However, the principal task of the advanced schools for cheese making is that of experimental studies leading to the improvement of the cheese industry, since in Italy, where about 50 different types of cheese are produced, cheese manufacture is much more important than the production of butter or consumers' milk.

The Experimental Institute for Cheese Making at Lodi studies exclusively the manufacture of cheese from cow's milk, which predominates in northern Italy, while the Experimental Institute for Cheese Making for southern Italy, at Naples, studies the problems concerning goat's milk, or mixed milk.

In the intermediate schools instruction in cheese making is given principally for the purpose of training workers for small and large dairies and cheese factories. The courses last three years at the school at Reggio Emilia and six months at the school at Brescia.

In recent years dairy instruction, by means of intensive courses of one month's duration, has been greatly developed. This is done with the object of improving the technical ability of men working in dairies and in large or small cheese factories, as well as of small producers who can not attend regularly the established schools.

These traveling courses follow a didactic program suited to the particular locality in which they are conducted, in order that they may give the most practical results.

They are established, organized, and developed by-
Institutes and schools for cheese making.

Agricultural extension courses.

Organizations of cheese manufacturing firms.

These extension courses, where the cheese making industry is in greater need of assistance (as in the Provinces of Udine, Bergamo. Sondrio, etc.), are given by experts who lead a campaign in favor of the cheese industry, and by their activities and instruction bring the aid of science where its need is greatest.

SHORT-COURSE INSTRUCTION IN THE MANUFACTURE OF DAIRY PRODUCTS.

EDWARD HOLYOKE FARRINGTON, head of the dairy department, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.

There is an old saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating; and without attempting to mention all the possible fads and fancies that have been suggested as valuable subjects for short-course instruction at our educational institutions, I will confine my discussion to the type of short course that has stood the test of 30 years, and is "still going strong."

In educational matters there is a certain type of mind which takes for its financial standard either the kind of instruction that contains the most big words or the one that deals with matters that are little understood by them; in fact, their lack of a clear understanding of the subject often appeals to these minds as proof of the financial value of such instruction. As a rule, short courses of instruction are designed to appeal to the captains of industry rather than to the doctors of philosophy, and these courses therefore receive better financial backing from the former than from the latter. Conclusive evidence of the value the business man places on short courses of instruction is furnished by the records of the large classes that continue to attend the Wisconsin winter dairy short course. These show that business men request their employees to attend this short course and pay them full wages during the school period.

From the earliest times, or since the invention of the Babcock milk test and its application to the buying of dairy products at our dairy manufacturing plants, the short course of instruction in dairy manufacturing has proved to be attractive and well filled with students. These short courses vary in length from three days to three months at different institutions, and while it has been our experience at Wisconsin that the students taking our three months' course reply in answer to our questionnaire asking "How may this course be improved?" that "It ought to be longer," still we have not extended it. We have not found it advisable to increase the length of this dairy course, principally because many of our cheese factories in the State close in November and begin operation in March. This gives a period of about three months when the operators of cheese factories may more appropriately attend a short course than at any other season of the year, or for any other length of time.

Our winter dairy course at the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., is attended by young men who, as a rule, are spending money they have earned by working in some creamery or cheese factory, and they take the course because they expect it will help them improve the yield and the quality of the product they will make when they return to their jobs after the course.

A fairly good idea of the type of students who attend our Wisconsin winter dairy course may be obtained from the following list of inquiries we received during the year 1922 for men we have trained to fill positions in various manufacturing plants.

Applications received for Wisconsin short-course dairy students in one year.

The minimum educational requirements of students for entering this short course are six months' training in some dairy manufacturing plant. No entrance examinations are given, but the student must present his written application signed by at least two of the following people: An owner or manager of a factory in which he has worked, a justice of the peace, a postmaster, or a priest or minister of the gospel.

AGE OF STUDENTS.

From the records of the students in attendance at the Wisconsin dairy course for the winter of 1922-23 we have obtained the following figures: Number of students between 18 to 20 years old, 24 per cent; 20 to 22, 19 per cent; 22 to 24, 22 per cent; 24 to 30, 22 per cent; and over 30 years of age, 13 per cent.

PREVIOUS FACTORY EXPERIENCE.

Creamery.-Students with 6 months' experience or less before entering the course, 8 per cent; 6 to 12 months, 14 per cent; 1 to 2 years, 17 per cent; over 2 years, 1 per cent.

Cheese factory. Experience 6 months or less, 4 per cent; 6 to 12 months, 27 per cent; 1 to 2 years, 9 per cent; over 2 years, 1 per cent. Ice cream.-Experience 6 months or less, 1 per cent; 1 or 2 years. 1 per cent; over 2 years, 3 per cent.

In answer to the question, "What did this course of instruction cost you, including railroad fare, board, room, and miscellaneous expenses? we received replies from 60 per cent of the students, and from these we find that the expense of 28 per cent of the students was between $150 and $175; of 28 per cent, between $175 and $200; of 33 per cent, between $200 and $250; of 11 per cent, over $250. The largest expense account reported by any one student was $350, while the smallest was $131.

According to the last report of the dairy and food commission there were 2,807 cheese factories, 667 creameries, and 67 condenseries in Wisconsin. A State law requires all operators of these factories to have a license, which is issued by the dairy and food commission each year; and by comparing a recent list of the licenses issued to such operators with a list of the names of our former dairy students we find that at the present time there is in Wisconsin one student in about every third factory of the State, although during the past

30 years 3,956 students have attended this Wisconsin short course in dairy manufacturing, and 379 of these came from other States and foreign countries.

PLAN OF WISCONSIN DAIRY SHORT COURSE.

The short course of instruction in the manufacture of dairy products at Wisconsin is given according to the following plan. There are five divisions in which instruction is given: The creamery, the cheese factory, the ice-cream factory, the laboratory, and the shop. The entire class meets in the lecture room at 8 o'clock every morning, where some professor connected with the school gives a general lecture. At 9 o'clock the class is assigned to the five laboratories: Section I to the creamery, Section II to the cheese factory, Section III to the laboratory, Section IV to the shop, and Section V to icecream making. Each section works for three hours (9 to 12) in the factory to which it is assigned.

After the noon recess, a lecture is given to the entire class at 1.30 by another one of the professors and at 2.30 the students again return to the factory work of the different divisions, continuing from the place where they left off in the morning.

This routine of instruction is continued for one week, after which time the students change their laboratory work after the morning lecture. Those who have the previous week worked in the cheese room go to the laboratory, the creamery students to the shop, the laboratory men to the cheese room, and the shop men to the creamery. By changing their laboratory work once each week during the 12 weeks' course, they have an opportunity to take the creamery, cheese factory, laboratory, and shop work during 3 weeks, or for onequarter of the 12 weeks' time they are in attendance.

The dairy department is supplied with milk and cream from over 200 farms. This is received by a group of students assigned to this work each day; the milk is skimmed in the creamery or made into cheese in the cheese room. All the work of operating the various machines, apparatus, and processes of manufacture is done by the students under the direction of some one of the 17 instructors connected with the dairy department.

The various divisions of the department are fully equipped with the appropriate machines, apparatus, and supplies used in our best modern dairy manufacturing plants. The instructors having charge of students in the various laboratories are selected from former students who have had several years' experience in factories after taking our course of instruction.

The fundamental purpose of the instruction is to teach students not only how to operate the various machines, and how to perform the manufacturing processes, but also to learn the reasons for each step taken in these manufacturing processes.

The products of the dairy department are sold locally, and the funds received from such sales are somewhat more than the amount paid the 200 farmers from whom the milk and cream supply is bought. The department, however, is not operated for the purpose of money making, but to give every student an opportunity to learn how to manufacture dairy products of good quality and to under

stand the operation of the same machines, apparatus, and methods that are used in factories throughout the country.

At appropriate times during the course, students are questioned for the purpose of finding out how well they are understanding the work they do, and these oral quizzes are followed by written examinations on the subjects.

In all this instruction an effort is made to help the student rather than to mystify and confuse him, and the extent to which the teaching staff has been able to do this is measured by the written quizzes which are given frequently during the course.

A brief outline of the subjects discussed by the lecturers and laboratory assistants and offered to the students in this course will include lectures on dairy manufacturing-plant management; creamery butter making; factory cheese making; ice-cream making; the laboratory inspection of milk and of other dairy products; the construction and repairing of machines and implements used in dairy manufacturing plants; dairy bacteriology; dairy chemistry; marketing dairy products; and allied subjects.

At the close of this three months' course of instruction a student is furnished a statement of the standing he has been given in each one of the courses of instruction he took. After leaving the school and obtaining a position in some dairy manufacturing plant he is a candidate for a dairy-course certificate, which may be obtained by reporting the work he is doing at some factory each month on blanks supplied by the dairy department. After seven such blanks are received by the dairy department, a representative is sent to the factory of the candidate, and if his inspection of the factory is satisfactory as to cleanliness, convenience of arrangement, and interest of the candidate in his work, this candidate is recommended to the appropriate authorities for receiving what is called a dairy certificate. A candidate while working for this certificate must fill some responsible position in the factory; in many cases he is the only operator, and has charge of the creamery or cheese factory.

At intervals during the year the dairy department mails notices to creameries and cheese factories throughout the State requesting that a package of the butter or the cheese be taken from the everyday make of the factory and forwarded to the dairy department for inspection as to its quality and composition. These packages are scored by a group of three to five judges, each one filling out his own score card, all of which are returned to the factory operator who sent the package for inspection; and together with the score cards, a letter of comment on the quality and the composition of the product is forwarded to the operator from a professor at the dairy depart

ment.

This, in brief, gives an outline of the short course in dairy manufacturing which has been given at the University of Wisconsin for the past 30 years, and which during that time has been attended by more students than there are creameries, cheese factories, and milk condenseries in the State. This, however, does not mean that every dairy manufacturing plant operator in the State of Wisconsin has taken a course of instruction at the university of the State, because 12 per cent of the total number of our students have been nonresi