AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 389 



attempting to popularize the subject by writing all of the science out 

 of it. If it is not based upon the fundamental sciences it is not sec- 

 ondary but elementary, and, as such ignores the genetic stages of devel- 

 opment usually represented by the high school adolescent. 12 Therefore, 

 if agriculture is to be made a secondary school subject it must be put 

 on a secondary plane — that is, it must be made scientific by the utiliza- 

 tion of the fundamental sciences. 13 It should not be divorced from the 

 high school sciences in order to precede them. 



The deferring of the agricultural work in the high school until 

 after the underlying sciences have been mastered will be at the very 

 imminent risk of starving the peculiar vocational interest upon which 

 its success depends. Investigations as well as experience show that the 

 interest in vocation is born in adolescence and that the manual vocations 

 normally precede the others. 14 It is a maxim of education that to 

 develop a useful instinct it should be exercised and directed during its 

 nascent period. 15 However judicious and far-sighted the plans of the 

 teacher may be regarding the student's high school course, neither the 

 student nor his parents may be safely left indefinitely in the dark re- 

 garding them. The average student in the high school should see a 

 generous amount of purpose in all of his work and have the benefit of 

 such experiences as are to be gained only by applying it to its purpose, 

 even though it mean, from the viewpoint of the teacher, a compromise 

 of his science. 



Prescribing high school science work to precede the agriculture 



""When he (the pupil) has completed his eighth year, he should have a 

 well-developed sympathy with agricultural affairs and he should have a broad 

 general view of them. Entering the high school he will then be able to take up 

 some of the subjects in their distinctly scientific phases." — N. E. A. Committee 

 on Industrial Education in Eural Schools, pp. 44-45. 



13 " It is the business of secondary education to raise all subjects which it 

 touches to the plane of science, by bringing all into the point of view of organ- 

 izing principles. ' ' — Brown, ' ' The Making of Our Middle Schools, " p. 4. 



14 " In almost all great men the leading idea of life is caught early. ' ' — 

 Eliot, "Education for Efficiency," p. 28. 



"Until the instincts of construction and production are systematically laid 

 hold of in the years of childhood and youth, until they are trained in social 

 directions, enriched by historical interpretation, controlled and illuminated by 

 scientific methods, we certainly are in no position to locate the source of our 

 economic evils, much less to deal with them effectively. ' ' — Dewey, ' ' The School 

 and Society," p. 39. 



15 " If a nerve center is not exercised properly during its nascent period, it 

 will be arrested in its development, for it loses its plasticity when the wave of 

 ripening moves past it to other centers. . . . The absence of appropriate stimulus 

 during the growing period is for the most part irremediable; and this results, 

 as I have already intimated, not only in the arrest of this particular function, 

 but it influences other functions by interfering with the readiness of association 

 between centers that can become connected only through the undeveloped 

 one. . . ." — O'Shea, "Dynamic Factors in Education," p. 151. 



