504 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



supervision, etc., and also agriculture, horticulture, manual training, 

 and other special or technical subjects taught by the professors and 

 instructors in the college of agriculture. 



In the University of Illinois there is a department of education with 

 ten courses, and this year there has been added a special instructor to 

 teach agriculture to prospective teachers. The University of Arkansas 

 offers a four-year normal course in which aginculture and horticulture 

 are taught. The Kansas College prepares teachers for three-year 

 certificates, which are renewable for life. The Mississippi College 

 has a department of industrial pedagogy and offers a four-year course 

 in industrial pedagogy, which includes agricultural subjects. The 

 State College of Washington offers fifteen courses in education, includ- 

 ing one course in methods of teaching agriculture. The Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College has a State appropriation of $5,000 for the sup- 

 port of normal instruction and is planning to organize this work 

 largelv along agricultural lines. 



The training of teachers of agriculture is just now a matter of 

 great importance. Owing to the rapid develojiment of the agricul- 

 tural colleges, the establishment of many new agricultural high 

 schools, and the introduction of agriculture into public secondary and 

 elementary school curricula, the demand for capable teachers of agri- 

 culture is far greater than the supply. The normal schools in the dif- 

 ferent States have shown a commendable desire to meet this emer- 

 gency, and some of them, notably in Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, 

 and Wisconsin, have succeeded in developing fairly strong secondary 

 courses. But most of the normal schools have been compelled to con- 

 tent themselves with the more elementary work known as nature 

 study and school gardening, such as Avould give preparation for the 

 kind of work now generally done in city public schools. 



A careful survey of the whole field reveals the fact that there is as 

 yet no adequate provision for the preparation of teachers to take 

 charge of agricultural courses in schools of agriculture, normal 

 schools, or other secondary schools, nor is there any definite attention 

 or encouragement given to the professional training of instructors for 

 the agricultural work in agricultural colleges. The normal schools 

 as at present, organized can not do this higher work, nor can it be done 

 by the great universities unless they maintain colleges of agriculture. 



The duty of training teachers of agriculture for both colleges and 

 secondary schools will, therefore, under present conditions, fall upon 

 the agricultural colleges, and the needs of the time are so great as to 

 make this duty almost imperative. Some of the larger agricultural 

 colleges, especially those which are departments of universities, might 

 well provide facilities and encouragement for fundamental research 



