PROGEESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 305 



who reviewed recent progress in teaching agriculture in elementary 

 and secondary schools, and interpreted the meaning of the practical 

 in teaching agriculture. C. B. Gibson, in a paper dealing with 

 prc>gress in vocational training, also gave much credit to recent devel- 

 opments in agricultural education. 



In summing up the discussion for the afternoon, Carroll G. Pearse, 

 of Milwaukee, maintained that boys and girls should be taught to 

 live in the world to-day, and hence that vocational education has a 

 place in the schools. Continuing, he said, "nothing is so big and 

 important as what lies before us in the agricultural development of 

 our country." Not only the lawyers and other professional men have 

 the right to vocational education, but the man who works with the 

 hoe, the ax, the awl, and the hammer, but in providing for the exten- 

 sion of vocational instruction downward there should be avoided the 

 danger of neglecting essentials in intellectual instruction such as good 

 English, mathematics, and other fundamentals of education. 



The national committee on agricultural education held two meet- 

 ings, at the first of which the principal paper was on '^Agricultural 

 education in the North," by J. W. Heston, president of the South 

 Dakota State Normal School, who reviewed conditions in the North 

 with reference to teaching agriculture in colleges, special agricultural 

 schools, normal schools, and public schools. In the absence of J. D. 

 Eggleston, who was announced for a paper on ''Agricultural educa- 

 tion in the South," D. J. Crosby, of this office, gave a similar review 

 of conditions in that section. 



At the second meeting of the committee, H. H. Seerley gave a 

 review of the change in sentiment and in conditions relating to agri- 

 cultural education since the committee was first organized five years 

 ago. This change has been apparent not only in the estabhshment 

 of new agricultural institutions, but in the widespread growth of 

 sentiment in favor of teaching agriculture quite generally in the 

 public schools. 



A NEW ASSOCIATION OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATORS. 



A conference on secondary agricultural education was held in 

 Chicago April 10. It was attended by representatives of the depart- 

 ments of agricultural education of ^Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, 

 Indiana, Mchigan, and Ohio, the principals of three agricultural 

 schools in IVIinnesota, and the specialists in agiicultural education of 

 the New York State department of education, the United States 

 Bureau of Education, and this office. 



Among the topics discussed at the conference was the number of 

 units feasible to be taught in high schools having special teachers of 

 agriculture, in consolidated rural or graded schools, and in one-room 



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