DAVIS] DEPA R TMENT OF SCHOOL A GRICUL TURK i 89 



In the limited time and with limited facilities, the amount of 

 work was necessarily limited and the work elementary. Physical 

 nature-study was not included. Few courses for college students 

 have yet been worked out to serve as a guide. Experience 

 seems to show that until elementary and secondary schools can 

 teach more nature-study, the subject-matter for preparing 

 teachers must necessarily be very elementary. However, some- 

 thing was accomplished, and the experience is given in the hope 

 that it may make a small con tribution to the discussion of courses 

 for teachers of nature-study 



DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL AGRICULTURE 



Conducted by BENJAMIN M. DAVIS 



[All communications concernino^ this department should be addressed 

 to Professor Benjamin M. Davis, Miami University, Oxford, O.] 



AGRICULTURE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



By CHARLES S. BUNGER 

 Township Superintendent, Lewisburg, Ohio 



Agricultural education has been shaping and taking form for 

 more than a century. The first agricultural associations were 

 organized about 1785, and, as a result of the agitation of these 

 associations, colleges began in 1792 to provide for such instruc- 

 tion. Columbia College took the lead, and Harvard, Yale, and 

 other leading colleges soon followed. 



The present system includes university courses of instruction ; 

 general college courses; schools of special subjects as dairying, 

 animal husbandry, field crops, etc.; agricultural extension; 

 agricultural high schools ; and elementary instruction in common 

 schools. All these, except the last, have efficient organization 

 and are doing splendid work. In the elementary schools work in 

 agriculture has not, as yet, taken definite form. There are many 

 theories as to how it may be brought about. It is also difficult to 

 say just what may be included in elementary agriculture. Some 

 would restrict it to instruction in agriculture as such, while others 

 would include everything that pertains to agriculture, such as 

 nature-study, botany, physical geography, in fact any work that 

 can in any manner be related to the subject. In many States the 

 subject of agriculture may be taught, while in others laws require 

 teachers to be examined in agriculture and the subject to be 



