86 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



HOW AGRICULTURE MAY BE TAUGHT IN THE PUBLIC 



SCHOOLS. 



(F. W. Howe, Assistant in Agricultural Education, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 



Long before the County Life Commission began its still nnfinishecl 

 work, popular interest in school agriculture as a means of improving 

 rural conditions and outlook was already pronounced and wide-spread. 

 That interest has continued to grow in strength and volume until there 

 is now little need of putting forth any arguments in favor of teaching 

 elementary agriculture in the common schools. If there is any ques- 

 tion it is the question of securing teachers who have been trained to 

 give such instruction, or of enabling those already in service to become 

 prepared for such teaching. 



The teachers themselves are ready to be taught, and generally will- 

 ing to undertake the work under competent direction. Now and then 

 perhaps a teacher may be found who has not discovered that soon it's 

 going to be the fashion to teach agriculture — just as it used to be the 

 fashion a few years ago to sneer at such a suggestion. Who does not 

 know, however, that it is a feminine prerogative to poke fun at a new 

 fashion in shoes or skirts or hats, and then forthwith begin to wear these 

 detested fashions just as soon as someone else sets the example, and so 

 agriculture has been spoken of as the latest school "fad." But to any 

 lingering doubters I want to suggest that the teaching of agriculture 

 has in it elements of worth and permanency not to be compared with 

 this year's fashions in hats. 



There are abundant reasons why agriculture will find, when it fully 

 comes into its own, a permanent place in our American educational 

 system — reasons too well understood to need any rehearsal to this audi- 

 ence. I am looking for the school — sure to be put in operation within 

 the next five years, I believe — wherein this central place for agriculture 

 shall be recognized, as the subject which can unify and give meaning to 

 all the other subjects which are now pursued in an utterly unrelated 

 way in most of our schools. Let me pause to ask, What study or prin- 

 ciple is there in the ordinary school which leads the pupil to see that 

 there is any unity of purpose in the pursuit of from four to a dozen 

 different subject every day? It is true, that in many cases he can 

 be induced to swallow the statement that this is necessary in order that 

 he may become educated ; but he admits it only on the authority of the 

 elders and not because it appeals to his own reason He walks by faith 

 and not by sight. If docile enough he takes the dose and hopes for the 

 best — like the obedient child who is told, "Shut your eyes and open 



