No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 393 



8. How is the spikelet attached to the rachis? 



9. Draw the rachis, 



(Cereals in America, pp. 31-33.) 



The laboratory exercise is followed by a recitation in which it is 

 sought to develop the purpose of this exercise. 



Lastly an illustration of a demonstration lecture is given. 

 51 (2) Demonstration. Germination test of corn. Materials. Ten 



or more ears of corn. 



Perform the test by the method given in Farmers' Bulletin 243, 

 page 8. In this manner test seed for farmers in the community. 



This is followed by a recitation on the germination of seed corn 

 in preparation for which students are required to study Farmers' 

 Bulletins 229 and 253. 



It will be noted that in each of these cases the recitation does not 

 precede but follows the exercises in which the student is taught to 

 observe and reason for himself. 



I once had a class in what is known as Animal Mechanics. In- 

 stead of assigning a lesson in a text-book, without any previous 

 preparation I took the class into a room where there were some 

 horses and two pairs of scales placed side by side in such manner 

 that the front and hind members of the horse could be weighed 

 separately but simultaneously. The students were requested to 

 determine these weights and calculate the position of the line of 

 gravitation. Then they placed the front feet of a horse on a box 

 so as to represent the horse going up hill or the hind feet on a box 

 to represent him going down hill, and determine whether the line 

 of gravitation had changed. After one of these students had been 

 working for an hour or so, he came to me and said: ''I must have 

 made a mistake, I do not find that the line of gravitation has been 

 changed." ''Well," I said, ''if you found it to be so, it must be so." 

 With that easy, confidential air that a student will often assume 

 toward his instructor in field excursions or laboratory exercises, the 

 student said: "Professor, are you trying to string us?" ''No," I 

 laughingly replied, "I am not trving to string you. I am trying 

 to get you to determine the facts. To-morrow I will explain to you 

 the reasons for the facts." A half hour later the same student 

 came to me with a correct explanation of the facts which he had 

 thought out for himself. I could have given the facts and explained 

 the reasons for them to the whole class in fifteen minutes. But 

 the information would have been my information. In two hours the 

 student had determined for himself the facts and thought the rea- 

 sons. The information was no lonjxer mine; it was his. 



But, you may say, as others has said, that no teacher short of an 

 agricultural college graduate is prepared to teach this syllabus, and 

 that there are not enough agricultural- college graduates to man 

 the high schools of the country even if they had the inclination and 

 were otherwise qualified for teaching high school students. 



It is not quite true that no teacher could teach this syllabus. A 

 teacher with a good fundamental training in chemistry and botany 

 could take this syllabus and successfully present the subject to high 

 school students. But if we are looking at it from the standpoint 

 of State system of public instruction for all practical purposes, it is 

 true. It is probably true that the Agricultural College in this 

 State will not in the next ten vears graduate enough men and 

 26 



