DAIRY, SEED IMPROVEMENT, STOCK BREEDERS' MEETINGS. 255 



WHY SHOULD AGRICULTURE BE TAUGHT IN OUR 

 SECONDARY SCHOOLS? 



Chester H. Bean, Kent's Hill. 

 (Prize Essay.) 



Agriculture within the past few years has become one of the 

 important subjects taught in secondary schools. It is only 

 recently, however, that the benefits derived from teaching agri- 

 culture in secondary schools have been realized. Before the 

 twentieth century very few secondary schools offered a course 

 in agriculture. This is due largely to the fact that the question, 

 "Why should agriculture be taught in our secondary schools?" 

 has seldom been clearly answered. 



An education in agriculture, equal in thoroughness to that 

 given in other subjects in secondary schools, is a stepping 

 stone to a higher education along agricultural lines in college. 

 Such an education gives the student sufficient knowledge of 

 the scientific side of farming to enable him to enter on the 

 advanced work of college without loss of time. This education 

 is especially valuable to the city student for it gives him an un- 

 derstanding of the principles of farm work, which enable him 

 to enter the college work on a fairly equal footing with the 

 student from the farm. 



Mathematics and languages have been taught for hundreds 

 of years, largely for the benefit which they give the student 

 by helping him to remember and to make the student broader 

 minded by making deep and logical thinking necessary. Why 

 should not agriculture be taught for the same reason? It is 

 seldom denied and often affirmed that the actual work of 

 agriculture, or agricultural study, requires as keen a mind as 

 any line of business or any study. 



An education in agriculture is beneficial to every student, 

 whatever his future occupation may be, for it is an undeniable 

 fact that the more subjects a person understands the better he 



