PROGRESS IN" AGRICULTURAL, EDUCATION. 383' 



the department of agricultural education, and from it several help- 

 ful and very suggestive publications have come. 



In Massachusetts a committee of fi^^e appointed by the conference 

 on agricultural science at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 

 1908 has prepared and the agricultural college has published a course 

 in elementary agriculture which consists of a series of practical exer- 

 cises, for each of which appropriate materials and directions are sug- 

 gested. There are 54 of those exercises, covering such topics as types. 

 of soil and subsoil, plant roots and root nodules, effect of humus and 

 lime in clay soil, determination of the percentage of water and air in 

 soils, testing soil solutions for acidity or alkalinity, soil temperatures,, 

 capillarity and evaporation, soil drainage, transpiration in plants, 

 study of various seeds, corn germination, variations in plant growth, 

 improvement by selection, home gardening, grafting, pruning, and 

 budding, plant enemies and diseases, preparation of Bordeaux mix- 

 ture, milk testing, and milk bacteria. 



The summer encampment scheme described in my last report has 

 assumed several new forms. In Oklahoma and Illinois it is an- 

 nounced that in the fall of 1910 agricultural encampment schools for 

 boys •AA'ill be held at the State fairs. In Iowa, P. J. Horchem, of 

 Dubuque, has held one successful vacation farm school for city boys 

 and is planning to extend his efforts along this line to other places. 

 In Kansas the " call of the wild " is answered by the organization of 

 Rural Life Boy Scouts. 



Accompanying all the sentiment and agitation for the improvement 

 of instruction in the rural schools there is a growing belief that the 

 physical condition of these schools should be improved in many ways. 

 Indeed, many educators believe that some measure of physical im- 

 provement must precede effective reorganization of the instruction. 

 And so, several of the State departments of education and some of 

 the colleges and normal schools are studying the problems of physical 

 improvement for these schools. The department of public instruction 

 in Illinois has published a pamphlet entitled " The One-Room Coun- 

 try Schools in Illinois," which contains many excellent suggestions 

 for improving the buildings and equipment of these schools — the 

 lighting, seating, heating, and ventilation. 



A MODEL RURAL SCHOOL. 



The State normal school at Kirksville, Mo., has given much atten- 

 tion to rural education, and of late has been developing a model rural 

 school building (PI. XX, fig, 2). This is described as follows in a 

 recent bulletin of the school : 



The model rural school exemplifies the simplest and yet the most complete, 

 practical, and economical architecture ever devised anywhere for rural or 

 village schools, and the most effective facilities for instruction used in schools 

 of corresponding grade anywhere. The children are transported from their 



