PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 49 



The introduction of aofriculture into the elementary schools has also 

 been promoted actively. In this work the colleges have been par- 

 ticularly active through their summer schools and other teachers' 

 courses and through the preparation of courses of study and school 

 leaflets and the encouragement of boys' and girls' clubs. These clubs 

 are coming to be very etfective agencies for interesting young people 

 in agriculture and home making and are now reported from 29 

 States, with a total membership of upward of 150.000. Agricultural 

 college men have also been active in the preparation of text-books 

 and manuals for secondary and elementar}'' schools. One secondary 

 and G elementary texts were published during the year. 



In all this work of providing facilities for graduate study in agri- 

 culture, reorganizing and strengthening college courses, and multi- 

 plying opportunities for acquiring secondary and elementary instruc- 

 tion in this subject, the Office of Experiment Stations has continued 

 to act as the general agency of the Department. The director, as 

 chairman of the committee on instruction in agriculture of the 

 Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Sta- 

 tions, has aided in the work now being done to prepare a four-year 

 college course in home economics and a one-year secondary course in 

 animal husbandry. He also aided in preparing courses for agri- 

 cultural high schools and has taken part in a number of important 

 educational conferences and spoken at several large meetings of 

 educators. 



The agricultural education service of the Office has continued to be 

 imder the immediate direction of Mr. D. J. Crosby, who has been 

 aided throughout the year by three clerical assistants and during the 

 last four months of the year by Mr. F. W. Howe, assistant in ajri-i- 

 cultural education. The denuinds upon this branch of the Office for 

 assistance to colleges and schools of different grades, and to teachers 

 and other school officers interested in the promotion of agricultural 

 education have continued to grow more rapidly than the funds for 

 this work have increased, and consequently the better facilities of the 

 Office for assistance to these educational agencies have not enabled it 

 to keep up with the demands. There have been numerous requests to 

 attend cf)nferences and conventions, to outline courses of study for 

 new schools, and to give lectures at summer schools for teachers, but 

 with the pressing current work, the j^repnration of educational i)ubli- 

 cations. the reviewing and abstracting of the literature of agricultural 

 education, and the management of a large correspondence it has been 

 necessary to refuse many worthy appeals for assistance which would 

 otherwise have received careful attention. 

 4G045°— 10 i 



