No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 259 



was a woiu-out, luu down, private academy, takeu over as a vo- 

 cational agiicultural liigii school and started tliis year with an 

 enrollment of between GO and 70 students the first year. This 

 \ery efficient and practical shop was made out of the basement by 

 putting in more windows and concreting the lloor. These are some 

 of the things the boys make in the shop. 1 believe in manual train- 

 ing, the manual training that has been in operation in some of 

 our schools during the past ten years has not fullilled expectations. 

 That is partly because of the type of work done there. It is true 

 the boys are taught how to handle tools and how to take care of 

 the tools, but some of the things which they make, and some of 

 the things they do in order to learn, those processes are not in 

 themselves practical. It is my theory that a boy can make some- 

 thing practical while he is learning to handle a saw or hammer 

 or chisel. This work beneath there, that step-ladder, wheel-barrow 

 and those crates, were made by boys the first year in the agricul- 

 tural department. 



This shows boys in one of our agricultural schools making a blue- 

 print frame. They wanted to make a hot-bed, and they first drew 

 their plans, then made a blue-print frame, then their blue-prints, 

 then they started in the shop and prepared their lumber. They even 

 made the sash, something which is not usually done, and glazed it. Of 

 course, probably from a commercial standpoint, it does not pay to 

 teach boys to make sash in the shop because carpenters as a rule, 

 do not make their own sash; however, every boy ought to know 

 how to do glazing. These boys later built the hot-bed. Most of 

 those boys are Freshmen in that agricultural school. These boys 

 are here learning something about shop work, about the handling 

 of tools and are also engaged in the work of the poultry class. They 

 are building this brooder house, partly orj, the time of the shop 

 work, and partly during the time of the poultry class. Of course, 

 all this work is preceded by the study of proper methods of hous- 

 ing the chickens. 



That is a familiar sight to all of you. Of course, the use of the 

 Babcock Milk Test — that is only one phase of the work in dairying 

 done in these schools. I want to impress on you that it does 

 not require any elaborate equipment to do this work successfully, 

 because much of it must be done out of doors and right on the 

 farm. However, I do not believe that any efficient system of educa- 

 tion can be carried on by starting out every day to go and see 

 what you can find, going out and hunting some cattle, and after 

 you get there, judging the cattle. It must be preceded by some 

 effort to organize your information and instruction. 



This speaks for itself — it is a Wayne county scene, Bryson 

 Springs, which must be preceded by some theoretical work. I am 

 making no effort whatever to describe what is on the slides, be- 

 cause you can see at a glance. As I stated some time during the 

 course of my talk, each boy who takes this agricultural course, 

 which is a four years' course in the high school, must carry on 

 some agricultural project, I shall show you here, slides illustrat- 

 ing two projects. Mr. Kockwell, the supervisor of agriculture in 

 the agricultural department of the Mansfield High School, — one of 

 our most progressive and successful agricultural departments in 



