PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 273 



day afternoon was on Ediication for the Improvement of Rural Con- 

 ditions, by J. AV. Robertson, president of Macdonald College. 



Nearly one-half of all the papers, addresses, and reports presented 

 at the convention dealt in some direct way with one or more phases 

 of industrial education. So decidedly did this subject dominate all 

 others in the papers and discussions of the general sessions and the 

 diH'erent department meetings that it shows clearly the almost uni- 

 versal demand for the reorganization of public school curricula along 

 lines giving greater emphasis to local, industrial, and domestic 

 affairs — agriculture, manual arts, and home economics. It could 

 almost be said that the desirability of introducing such work as 

 rapidly as possible into the regular work of the public schools was 

 taken for granted, and that the problems which concerned those who 

 attended the Denver convention related mainly to the methods, 

 administration, and the training of teachers for giving industrial 

 instruction in the schools. 



There was also considerable discussion on the purpose and value 

 of industrial teaching. The i)urpose, it was quite generally agi-eed, 

 is not so much to uplift agriculture or manufacturing or business as 

 it is to raise the level and increase the efficiency and happiness of 

 those engaged in these pursuits. This was made clear by Doctor 

 Harvey in his presidential address, in which he maintained that 

 inilustrial education is much more than mere education for skill in 

 industrial processes. " Industrial education," he said, " has for its 

 purpose the acquiring of a body of usable knowledge of greater or 

 less extent related to industrial conditions, processes, organization, 

 and to the administration of industrial affairs, involving the gaining 

 of some skill in the use of such knowledge and the securing of mental, 

 aesthetic, and ethical training through the acquisition and use of the 

 knowledge indicated." 



This interpretation of the purpose of industrial education was also 

 adopted by President Robertson, who maintained that the purpose 

 of education in rural schools is not primarly to make a bigger steer 

 or a biffjrer ear of corn, but to " make a better home for a better child." 

 " The whole idea of education." in his opinion, " is to make the earth 

 an ideal home for the race," and this will not be accomplished by 

 training for culture, the kind of culture popularly defined by the 

 words "leisure, indolence, idleness." l)ut through the refining influ- 

 ence of labor, labor which gives the boy a thrill as he looks upon his 

 work, sees that it is well done, and realizes that he has done it. To 

 realize such an ideal in education. Doctor Robertson believes that we 

 must shift the emjjhasis from the '* three R"s " — from letters to train- 

 ing for life in the locality. 



Two papers read before the de|)artmcnt of secondary education 

 dealt almost entirely with agricultural education. These were: Edu- 

 4G(W5°— 10 IS 



