AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 385 



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AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 

 By josiah main 



WESTERN KANSAS STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, HAYS, KANS. 



HE proposition to put agricultural courses into the existing high 

 schools may seem, at first thought, to be merely one of adding 

 another subject to the curriculum. But experience shows that a 

 curriculum may not be dealt with arbitrarily. To successfully inau- 

 gurate this subject it is necessary that study be made of its purposes 

 and, more especially, of the adjustment of this to other high-school 

 subjects. 1 



The subjects of the present curriculum most concerned in this 

 adjustment are the sciences. These, " the most precious achievement 

 of the race," are themselves comparatively new to the curriculum and 

 the promise with which their introduction into the school was made 

 has fallen far short of fulfillment, so that their status is at present far 

 from a final adjustment. 2 And their close relation to the new subject, 

 agriculture, makes the problem of the adjustment of all a single 

 problem. 



1 ' ' No study is worthy of a place in our program which has not commanded 

 the full devotion of some master mind. All students must be introduced to the 

 same civilization, and since all are human their several ways of approaching it 

 will not be fundamentally different." — Brown, "The Making of Our Middle 

 Schools, ' ' p. 440. 



2 ' ' Science is the most precious achievement of the race thus far. It has 

 made nature speak to man with the voice of God, has given man prevision so 

 that he knows what to expect in the world, has eliminated shock, and above all, 

 has made the world a universe coherent and consistent throughout." — Hall, 

 ' ' Adolescence, ' ' Vol. II., p. 544. 



' ' This recognition of science as pure knowledge, and of the scientific method 

 as the universal method of inquiry, is the great addition made by the nineteenth 

 century to the idea of culture. I need not say that within that century what we 

 call science, pure and applied, has transformed the world as the scene of the 

 human drama; and that it is this transformation that has compelled the recogni- 

 tion of natural science as a fundamental necessity in liberal education. ' ' — Eliot, 

 "Education for Efficiency," p. 37. 



' ' I can not help feeling . . . that we have not yet succeeded in so organizing 

 the sciences as instruments of general education as to fulfill the high expectations 

 which some of us formed for them nearly a quarter of a century ago. There can 

 be little doubt that the sciences of nature and of man, properly organized and 

 presented as educational instruments, are destined to be classified as true 

 humanities." — Butler, Address of Welcome, A. A. A. S., 1906. 



"It seems to be a fact that the sciences, although dealing in knowledge of 

 matters of the greatest immediate interest, and although concerned with the most 

 elemental of all trainings ... are still of mediocre efficiency as factors in general 

 education." — Ganong, "Botanical Education in America," A. A. A. S., 1909. 



