THE CHARACTER AND PURPOSE OF WORK IN ELEMEN- 

 TARY AGRICULTURE IN INDIANA 



By M. L. FISHER ' 



Assistant Professor of Agronomy, Purdue University 



Although the Indiana State Board of Education has issued 

 a course of study in agriculture that proceeds along systematic 

 lines, yet the work is in the main unsystematic and desultory. 

 This is due, not so much to an ill-defined notion of what should 

 be done, as to lack of facilities and properly trained teachers. 

 The purpose of the work is best expressed by the following 

 quotation from State Superintendent Cotton's discussion of 

 Agriculture and Domestic Science in the 1908-09 State Manual: 



"The purpose is in the end educational and not merely to 

 give the pupil information or manual skill or entertainment. 

 The real end to be sought is to enlarge his intellectual field, to 

 give him right ideas about work and industry and to correlate 

 his school work with home life and environment." This view is 

 shared by all who have a comprehensive grasp of the situation. 



In most cases, the points of beginning have been along lines in 

 which pupils are most interested. Indiana is a large corn pro- 

 ducing state. In almost every community the dominant 

 interest is the growing of corn. This led those who were early in 

 the work to organize clubs for the study of how to produce more 

 and better corn. In many cases these clubs included both boys 

 and girls. The county superintendent was usually, although not 

 always, the leader in the organizing work. Pupils were furnished 

 a definite amount of seed and given directions for planting, 

 cultivating and harvesting the crop. At a set time all came to- 

 gether for a competitive exhibit. The corn was judged according 

 to a score card, prizes awarded, and a talk given on corn growing. 

 These corn clubs also stimulated interest in corn growing among 

 the parents of the pupils. More books and bulletins on corn 

 growing were read than ever before and so the way was opened. 

 Teachers have found it easy to take up the study of corn in a 

 systematic way in the schoolroom and the interest is easily led 

 along other lines of agricultural endeavor. 



In other schools the work has been started by a study of how 

 plants grow. A study of the germination of the seed, the needs 



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