AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 395 



Lastly, there are the unequaled opportunities of a sociological or 

 missionary nature which come oftenest to one possessing practical 

 knowledge and which if taken advantage of make him truly altruistic. 

 Hitherto the real if not the admitted purpose of education has been the 

 good of the educated, however much society, as a whole, may have 

 profited from its educated members. But it is coming more and more 

 to be recognized that no feature of an educational system, supported at 

 public expense and whose single aim is citizenship, can be defended that 

 does not contribute directly to social efficiency. 28 Social efficiency in- 

 cludes all that may be appropriate to the most utilitarian phases of 

 industrial education, but it includes a good deal more. Eacial better- 

 ment must be the compelling motive. On the final test of social effi- 

 ciency " he that is greatest among you shall be your servant." 29 



The evaluation of these hitherto unassumed school functions is, to 

 him who insists that everything done in the school be assigned its proper 

 " preparatory " value in credits of admission to higher institutions, the 

 difficult end of the problem of the adjustment of agriculture to the 

 course of study. The purpose of the high school is to undertake them 

 and do them to the best of its ability, leaving it to the college and uni- 

 versity to worry over their pedagogical classification and estimation. 



30 



^ ' ' Effort for the production of property is ethical, and the moment the 

 child engages in it he places himself on the side of law and order in the com- 

 munity. "—Hodge, "Nature Study and Life," p. 30. 



29 ' ' No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter 

 how good one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of every 

 concrete opportunity to act, one 's character may remain entirely unaffected for 

 the better. ... A character is a completely fashioned will, and a will ... is an 

 aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm and prompt and definite way upon all 

 the principal emergencies of life. . . . Every time a resolve or a fine glow of 

 feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost; it 

 works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the 

 normal path of discharge. There is no more contemptible type of human char- 

 acter than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life 

 in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion, but who never does a manly con- 

 crete deed." — James, "Psychology," Vol. I., p. 125. 



' ' Education must seek to develop social action. It can take no account of 

 possible thought or feeling which exercises no influence upon one's behavior. . . . 

 The school can not have for its leading principle the improvement of the indi- 

 vidual as an isolated being." — 'Shea, "Education as Adjustment," p. 95. 



"Education for culture alone tends to isolate the individual; education for 

 sympathy with one's environment tends to make the individual an integral part 

 of the activities and progress of his time. ' ' — Bailey, ' ' The Nature-study Idea, ' ' 

 p. 63. 



30 ' ' The interests of higher education will be better served by such prescrip- 

 tion of college entrance requirements, and such tests of preparation, as will do 

 most to vitalize instruction in the secondary schools." — Brown, "The Making of 

 Our Middle Schools," p. 443. 



