2o8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



either as part of the schoolhouse or as adjacent to the school- 

 house, a well equipped home for the teacher. The teacher is 

 on the job 12 months in the year, which is better than having a 

 city girl come out Monday morning and hurry away Friday 

 afternoon. These schoolhouses have ample grounds around 

 them, in fact a small farm. The head teacher is the instructor 

 of the boys and girls of the community in farm affairs. The 

 school farm is a model demonstration farm, and throughout 

 the entire growing season instruction is given there several 

 times a week. The boys and girls at home are working on 

 their own farms. They come to school, to the man who has 

 been trained, who knows ; they bring the questions that have 

 grown up in their actual experience and because of their inter- 

 est they learn definitely and effectively. Here you have a 

 school that is in the highest sense vocational for agriculture. 

 Denmark is doing a remarkable work. There are a few places 

 in America where the conditions in Denmark which I have 

 described are being reproduced. May the number of such 

 places multiply rapidly. 



If we are to have vocational education it will cost money, 

 a great deal of money. But after all, nothing costs much that 

 returns more than it costs. If the present generation is trained 

 so as to produce skilled scientific workmen, the output of the 

 farm and factory will be increased and there will come back 

 to the people wealth far in excess of the cost. Therefore the 

 cost is a thing that is not so serious as it might at first sight 

 seem. 



Another important question upon which there is wide diver- 

 sity of opinion is: When this new type of school develops, 

 shall the management be entirely independent of the present 

 school organization or shall it be incorporated as a part of it? 

 Many people believe that it will have to be entirely independent 

 for the reason that if you place it under the management of 

 the present school committees, which are conservative and 

 already intensely interested in the other forms of education, 

 they will not give vocational education a square or fair deal. 

 I confess that there is some strength in that argument. Prac- 

 tical things have usually come into the school against the oppo- 

 sition of those in authority. But I should dishke to believe 

 that it is necessary for us to have two school organizations side 



