300 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The Service issued during the year 92 documents, aggregating 

 3,830 pages. These included 19 numbers of Experiment Station 

 Record, 5 reports, 9 technical bulletins, 1 article in Journal of Agri- 

 cultural Research, 4 insular station publications, 2 Farmers' Bul- 

 letins, 3 Yearbook articles, 2 syllabi of farmers 1 institute lectures, 9 

 numbers of Agricultural Education Monthly, 9 numbers of Farm 

 Demonstration Monthly, 22 documents on cooperative demonstration 

 work, and 7 miscellaneous documents. 



Much progress was made in consolidating and cataloguing the 

 collection of lantern slides and photographs belonging to the Service, 

 securing new illustrative material from the different bureaus, improv- 

 ing and standardizing the quality of illustrative material used in the 

 Service, organizing and developing a chart service, and regulating 

 the shipment of lantern slides for use in farmers' institutes, schools, 

 and extension work. About 1,000 shipments, aggregating over 44,000 

 slides, were made during the year. 



INVESTIGATIONS ON AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS. 



C. H. Lane, Chief Specialist in Agricultural Education. 



In 17 States agriculture is now required by law to be taught in all 

 public rural elementary schools, and in 7 States it is put into the 

 required course of study prescribed by the State superintendent of 

 public instruction. In a considerable number of States agriculture 

 is required in the rural high schools and in urban elementary 

 schools. 



During the past year there was an unprecedented increase in the 

 number of secondary schools giving agricultural courses. Reports 

 to this effect have been received from 4,665 schools, and the number 

 of students in such courses rose to over 90,000. A large number of 

 agricultural college graduates are in charge of these courses, the use 

 of land for instructional purposes has greatly increased, and many 

 of these schools have introducetd the home-project method as a 

 practical feature of agricultural instruction. The development of 

 the boys' and girls' clubs as a feature of the cooperative agricultural 

 extension work is also being taken advantage of by many schools as 

 an aid to their classroom instruction in agriculture. 



Many new problems have arisen regarding the content and meth- 

 ods of agricultural instruction and the relations of this work to other 

 subjects in the curriculum. Not only the State departments of edu- 

 cation and the local school authorities and teachers but also the 

 agricultural colleges are giving much more attention to these prob- 

 lems and are seeking the aid of the Bureau of Education and the 

 Department of Agriculture along these lines. Their needs are in 

 two general lines: (1) Information regarding the organization of 

 agricultural instruction in the United States and foreign countries 

 and assistance in the formulation of courses of study suited to dif- 

 ferent agricultural regions, and (2) well-organized subject matter in 

 the various branches of agriculture, based on the results of the work 

 of this dr irtment and the agricultural experiment stations. 



In the tirst line this Service has during the past year entered into 

 a larger measure of cooperation with the Bureau of Education. In 

 addition to continued cooperation in the preparation of an annual 



