EDITOKIAL. 303 



the unaided high school departments of agriculture, a little more than 

 one-fourth of the present number. The largest number of unsub- 

 sidized high school courses in agriculture is found in Ohio, which re- 

 ports three hundred and thirty-six. Nebraska has one hundred and 

 ninety-one, Missouri one hundred and sixty-seven, and AVisconsin one 

 hundred and three. The U. S. Bureau of Education reports that in 

 1910 there were over thirty-seven thousand pupils in agricultural 

 courses in the public and private high schools of the country. The 

 number is undoubtedly much larger this year. 



State aid to stimulate the introduction of courses in agriculture, 

 home economics, and manual arts into public high schools was first 

 definitely provided for in Virginia in 1908, when the general assembly 

 appropriated $10,000 to be used for that purpose in at least one high 

 school in each of the ten congressional districts in the State. Vir- 

 ginia was followed in 1909 by Maine and Minnesota, in 1910 by 

 Louisiana, Maryland, and New York, and in 1911 by Kansas, Massa- 

 chusetts, North Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. In the spring of 

 1910 there were twenty-eight subsidized courses in agriculture in 

 public schools ; to-day there are more than ten times as many. Kansas 

 has the largest number of subsidized courses in agriculture — an even 

 hundred ; Minnesota has eighty, Texas thirty-four, Louisiana twenty- 

 five, and six other States have from one to seventeen. 



The amount given to each school varies from $250 in Kansas to 

 $4,000 in Virginia. Minnesota devotes $125,000 annually to this 

 work. The total expenditures for subsidies in 1912 will approximate 

 $400,000. This will include subsidies for home economics and manual 

 arts in all of the subsidized schools except those in two States which 

 subsidize agriculture alone, and in two other States which subsidize 

 agriculture and home economics. Virginia is the only State that sub- 

 sidizes extension work done by public high schools. 



No attempt has been made to list the elementary schools teaching 

 agriculture, except in the case of industrial, eleemosynary, and spe- 

 cial agricultural schools, of which there are thirty-seven for whites, 

 one hundred and twelve for Indians, and fourteen for negroes. In 

 addition to these, there are of course many hundred public elementary 

 schools in which some instruction in agriculture is being given. 

 Twelve States have passed laws requiring the teaching of agriculture 

 in all common schools, five others require it in all the rural schools, 

 and three others require it in the rural high schools. 



The preparation of teachers to give instruction in agriculture is 

 one of the serious problems confronting the promoters of this move- 

 ment. That and the inability of many schools to pay large enough 

 salaries to retain good teachers are the principal causes that prevent 

 the development of agricultural teaching at even a more rapid rate 

 than it is now progressing. With a view of insisting uj)on some 



