EDITORIAL. 503 



seem that finuliuuciital research in a<:>Ticuhural education would shed 

 li^ht upon such prohlenis as these. There are many others, among 

 which may he uieulioned the rehitive importance of the text-book, the 

 lecture, the seminar, and the i)racticum in teaching agriculture, (he 

 rational basis for the development of the practicum, the educational 

 value of agiiculture and of the agricultural i)racticum, etc. 



The problem which seems to be of the most vital present concern to 

 the whole movement for promoting better agricultural conditions is 

 that of training teachers for all grades of schools. The efforts which 

 some of the colleges of agriculture are making along this line indicate 

 that they ajapreciate the importance of such training and their duty 

 in the matter, but as yet few of these institutions have undertaken 

 serious work in the preparation of teachers of agriculture. 



Ele\^n State universities with which colleges of agriculture are 

 connected and one separate college of agriculture have departments 

 of education, but only four of these have anything in their catalogues 

 to indicate that agricultural subjects are in any way considered in the 

 study of education. Six of the agricultural colleges (including two 

 of those referred to above) of!'er regular normal courses, and one 

 (Massachusetts) has a State appropriation to enable it to develop 

 such courses. Two of these normal courses are innocent of agricul- 

 tural subjects and another contains no pedagogy or other professional 

 training in education. There are seven colleges of agriculture offer- 

 ing short normal courses of one to three years, thirteen that maintain 

 sunnner schools for teachers, and five, not included in any of the 

 above lists, that give one or two courses each in pedagogy, psychology, 

 and history of education. 



There are therefore thirty-two of the land-grant institutions for 

 whites which offer courses intended for teachers ; seven of these con- 

 fine this work to short summer schools or to one or two units of peda- 

 gogy or psychology, leaving twenty-five that are making a serious 

 effort to solve the teacher problem. Fourteen ou.t of these twenty- 

 five colleges mention agriculture in their courses for teachers. This 

 is a modest showing, but it is encouraging in comparison with con- 

 ditions a few years ago when scarcely a land-grant college in the 

 country held out any inducement to teachers. 



In some of these institutions the normal work is organized on a very 

 broad and substantial basis. The University of Missouri, for ex- 

 ample, has a teachers' college in charge of a i)rofessor of educational 

 psychology. It offers undergraduate work leading to the B. S. degree 

 and a life certificate for teachers, and graduate work leading to the 

 A. M. and Ph. I), degrees. The studies include professional subjects 

 in education such as the philosophy of education, pedagogy, school 



