214 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



t 



farmers. It is also striving to coordinate its work with the agricultural departments of 

 the several States, and so far as its own work is educational, to coordinate it with the 

 work of other educational authorities. Agricultural education is necessarily based 

 upon general education, but our agricultural educational institutions are wisely special- 

 izing themselves, making their courses relate to the actual teaching of the agricultural 

 and kindred sciences to young country' people or young city people who wish to live in 

 the country. 



Great progress has already been made among farmers by the creation of farmers' 

 institutes, of dairy associations, of breeders' associations, horticultural associations, 

 and the like. * * * The Department can and will cooperate with all such asso- 

 ciations, and it must have their help if its own work is to be done in the most efficient 

 style. 



Other striking indications of this friendly attitude toward agri- 

 cultural education are found in the numerous bills introduced into the 

 Senate and the House of Representatives at the second session of the 

 Fifty-ninth Congress providing for additional aid to agricultural 

 colleges, for agricultural schools of secondary grade, for Federal aid 

 for secondary courses in agriculture, home economics and mechanic 

 arts, and for branch experiment stations in connection with agricul- 

 tural schools. The State legislatures also are responding to the 

 demand for more liberal funds for agricultural and mechanical col- 

 leges as well as for aid to technical instruction of lower grade in pub- 

 lic schools. Furthermore, the programme of nearly every meeting 

 of farmers, teachers, and school officers in the United States during 

 1906 has included some consideration of the subject of agricultural 

 education. 



A public sentiment thus aroused to the point of admitting defects 

 in the scheme for educating our industrial youth and giving liberally 

 of the public funds to remedy these defects will accomplish results as 

 rapidly as the available experts can overhaul and improve the machin- 

 ery of education. 



EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The United States Department of Agriculture through its different 

 Bureaus has responded to many and varied requests for aid in pro- 

 moting agricultural education in the colleges, the secondary schools, 

 and the elementary schools. The attitude of the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture with reference to the educational work of this Department 

 is shown by the following statements from his report for 1906: 



With the development of the Department's work along educational lines it has 

 become clear that it may accomplish important and valuable service as a central 

 agency for the promotion of agricultural education in cooperation with the State 

 departments of agriculture and education, the agricultural colleges and experiment 

 stations, and the State and national agricultural organizations. The most important 

 lines of educational effort in which the Department should engage may be briefly 

 outlined as follows: 



