To the Header : 



ON behalf of the Department of Agriculture, 

 I wish to express my most hearty apprecia- 

 tion of the success of this — the iirst state 

 agricultural census taken by the children 

 in the schools of any state. I wish also to 

 extend my sincere thanks to Commissioner 

 John H. Finley and other officials of the 

 Department of Education for their interest 

 and assistance in perfecting plans, to the 

 district superintendents of schools and to the principals and 

 teachers of the 10,500 schools of the state for their excellent 

 cooperation, but most of all to the children themselves upon whom 

 fell the greater burden of the work. 



Yet, despite the large effort that the children have put forth, 

 I believe that the value of the census to the school children has 

 been two-fold. In the first place it has been in itself a practical 

 exercise in arithmetic. Each pupil obtained the data for his or 

 her farm or a neighbor's farm. These data were brought to the 

 school, and the district totals for each crop or group of animals 

 computed on the blackboard. Thus, even the smallest children in 

 the school had a part in contributing to a large and constructive 

 piece of work, and at the same time found a new interest in the 

 practical application of school problems to their own community. 

 , I would suggest that further benefits of a similar nature might 

 be derived by using the results of the census as a basis for practical 

 problems in arithmetic. For example, the proportion of the dis- 

 trict's production in comparison with the county in the various 

 products named could be readily ascertained, the standing of the 

 county among all counties for each product as suggested in the 

 tables that follow (pages 7, 8, and 9) would be an exercise worth 

 while. Computing proportions of the total production of the 

 highest five or ten or twenty counties under the various items in 

 comparison with that of the whole state would offer further 

 vai'iation and set the pupils thinking. 



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