49 



in iDiiny States strfiniou^ ofiorts are being made to in)pi*ove tlie general condi- 

 tion of these seliools. Our url>an eonmiunities are eouiing to see more clearly 

 that their prosjierity is vitally associated with the prosiyeritj- of agriculture, 

 and they therefore more readily assent to State taxation for the benefit of the 

 rural as well as the city schools. Advantage should be taken of the increased 

 ]trosi)erity of many of our agricultural regions to inii)ress upon our farmers the 

 wisdom of liuilding better schoolhouses. improving the school grounds, increas- 

 ing the pay of teachers, and introducing the teaching of agriculture in the 

 country districts as an investment which will greatly aid in periietuating and 

 increasing the prosperity they now enjoy and make the lot of their descendants 

 more fortunate than their own. The agricultural colleges and the farmers' 

 institutes can have great influence in this direction. 



OBJECT OF TEACHING AGRICULTURE. 



Coming now to consider what should be the aim of instruction in agriculture 

 in the elementary school and how it should be related to the general scheme of 

 elementary education as formulated and approved by educational authorities, 

 we have for our guidance the rei)ort of the Committee of Fifteen of the National 

 Educational Association. In this rei)ort it is assumed and argued that the 

 studies of the school fall naturally into five coordinate groups: (1) Mathe- 

 matics and physics; (li) biology, including chiefly the plant and the animal: 

 (8) literature and art; (4) gramniar and the technical and scientific study of 

 language: and (5) history and the study of sociological, political, and social 

 institutions. Dr. ^\'. T. Harris, U. S. Com:nissioner of Education, in a paper 

 discussing this report and the necessity for tive coordinate groups of studies in 

 the schools, says : 



'• Each one of these groups, it was assumed, should be represented in the 

 curriculum at all times by some topic suited to the age and previous training of 

 the pui)il." 



Continuing, he says : 



" The first stage of school education is education for culture and education for 

 the purpose of gaining command of the conventionalities of intelligence. These 

 conventionalities are such arts as reading and writing and the use of figures, 

 technicalities of maps, dictionaries, the art of drawing, and all of those semi- 

 mechanical facilities which enable the child to get access to the intellectual 

 conquests of the race. Later on in the school course, when the pupil passes out 

 of his elementary studies, which partake more of the nature of practice than of 

 theory, he comes in the secondary school and the college to the study of science 

 and the technic necessary for its preservation and conuuunication. All these 

 things belong to the first stage of school instruction whose aim is culture. On 

 the other hand, post-graduate work and the work of professional schools have 

 not the aim of culture as much as the aim of fitting the person for a social voca- 

 tion. In the post-graduate work of universities the demand is for original 

 investigation in special fields. In the professional school the student masters 

 the elements of a particular practice, learning its theory and its art. 



" It is in the first stage, the schools for culture, that these five coordinate 

 branches should be represented in a symmetrical manner. It is not to be 

 thought that a course of university study or that of a professional school should 

 be symmetrical. But specializing should follow a course of study for culture in 

 which the symmetrical whole of human learning and the synnnetrical whole of 

 the soul should be considered. From the primary school, therefore, on through 

 the academic course of the college, there should be symmetry and five coordinate 

 groups of studies represented at each part of the course — at least in each year, 

 although jterhaps not throughout each part of the year." 



Discussing the second coordinate group, the biological. Doctor Harris argues 

 that it should include "whatever is organic in nature — especially studies 

 relating to the plant and the animal — the growth of material for food and cloth- 

 ing, and in a large measure for means of transportation and culture. This 

 study of the organic phase of nature forms a great [tortion of the branch of 

 study known as geography in the elementary school." 



While it is probably true that eight years ago, when this was written, geog- 

 raphy as taught in the primary grades of the best city schools included all the 

 studies relating to the plant and the animal that were at that time considered 

 necessary, it is also true that at the present time much of this study is intro- 



