DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL AGRICULTURE 



With this number of The Nature-Study Review begins a 

 department which will be known as School Agriculture. Various 

 phases of agricultural education as related to elementary and 

 secondary schools will be discussed by workers from different 

 sections of this country and Canada. 



It is hoped to make this department a sort of clearing house for 

 ideas and methods on this subject, and especially to make the 

 work of each section of the country known to others. 



Agricultural education (elementary and secondary) is now 

 prominently in the foreground of educational matters. It is 

 beginning its formative period, and no one knows just how it will 

 differentiate and develop, but there is a widespread faith that 

 something good will come out of the movement. Enough here 

 and there has already been accomplished to justify this faith. 

 No less than twenty-two lines of effort, more or less independent, 

 are now being made, either as propaganda to increase interest in 

 the subject, or in the actual work of solving the many problems 

 involved in its introduction. Examples of the former are the 

 state boards of agriculture, farmers' institutes, agricultural col- 

 lege extension, and discussions in educational meetings both local 

 and national; examples of the latter are the recently organized 

 departments of agricultural education in many of the State uni- 

 versities and agricultural colleges, agricultural instruction in 

 most of the state normal schools, district and county secondary 

 agricultural schools and the work of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, particularly through the office of Experiment 

 Stations. 



Among these agencies at work for the promotion of agricultural 

 education there is naturally much difference in points of view and 

 in reasons advanced for such instruction. 



An analysis of the various ideas regarding the place and value 

 of the subject reveals at least three points of view: 



T. Economic, which recognizes the necessity of more intelli- 

 gent agricultural practice to meet the demands of an increasing 

 population on decreasing natural resources. 



2. Educational, which considers agricultural education simply 

 as one part of the general movement to relate school work more 

 closely with life. 



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