596 EXPEKIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Some needs in forestry education, H. P. Baker {Forestry Quart., 10 (1912), 

 No. 1, pp. Ji5~Jf9). — This is a discussion as to whether our courses in forestry- 

 should be strengthened along lines of natural science or engineering. 



" The fact that all men from either 4 or 6 year courses have been placed upon 

 nearly the same basis upon entering practical work has produced an attitude, 

 a condition . . . which must be changed somewhat before the problem of filling 

 the gap between the practically untrained guai'd and ranger of today and the 

 technical assistant is solved." A solution suggested at the recent conference of 

 forest schools in Washington " is the establishment of a series of well-equipped 

 ranger schools giving from 2 to 3 years of intensely practical work and fitting 

 men for work in specific regions rather than for the entire country." Or it 

 might be agreed " that the function of the undergraduate forest school is a 

 training especially strong in civil and mechanical engineering, that the gradu- 

 ates may fit immediately into such work as reconuoissauce surveying as prac- 

 ticed in the National Forests, or estimating and surveying as now carried out 

 in the Appalachians, or the planning and carrying out of logging opera- 

 tions; . . . that a man so trained and with a bachelor's degree only should 

 not be called a forester until he had taken 1 or 2 years of advanced work in 

 technical forestry, after a year or two of experience." 



In public high, schools should agriculture be taught as agriculture or as 

 applied science? W. II. Hart {Yearbook Nat. 8oc. Studi/ Ed., 11 {1912), pt. 2, 

 pp. 91-97). — The author assumes that agriculture may be taught in either of 

 these ways, but concludes that because of time limitations and desirability of 

 maintaining human interest, the former is to be preferreil. 



In the public high schools agriculture should be taught as agriculture, not 

 as applied science, G. F. Warren {Yearbook Nat. Soc. Study Ed., 11 {1912), 

 pt. 2, pp. 9S-101). — The author emphasizes the fact that agriculture is too new 

 and rapidly growing a science to be best taught by having the principles pre- 

 sented in the separate sciences. To keep all the science text-books emphasizing 

 agriculture up to date would be an impossible task, and further, " our text- 

 books of science are not written by persons who know much about agriculture." 

 The sciences are also of world-wide application, whereas certain phases of agri- 

 culture are essentially local in their pedagogy. Another reason advanced is 

 that " our teachers of science are not likely ever to know enough about agricul- 

 ture to be able to go very far with the introduction of agriculture into the 

 sciences." 



The author holds that agriculture is an independent science in itself, as inde- 

 pendent, for example, as medicine, where " we should not think of expecting 

 the teachers of botany, zoo]ogj% chemistry, and physics to train physicians." 

 Illustrations are given to show that trying " to give agricultural ti-aining with- 

 out agriculture as a separate subject is like Hamlet with Hamlet left out." 



Potentiality of the school garden, C. A. Stebbins (Addresses and Proe. Nat. 

 Ed. Assoc, Jf9 (1911), pp. 1131-1137). — An address delivered before the Na- 

 tional Education Association at San Francisco, in which the author points out 

 the possibility of the school garden to give new direction to old subjects and 

 create a sentiment for farming, for country life, and to link together school life 

 and community life generally. This is done, as he suggests, by making the 

 garden what might be called an embryo community, where children may be 

 brought naturally in contact with those factors which they are to meet later in 

 life. Here the child may have demonstrated to him, through primitive methods 

 of farming, marketing, banking, etc., the civic evolution of his race, and at the 

 same time be brought in contact with the activities of the world ; for example, 

 flax may be grown, later the fiber may be separated and used in weaving: from 

 this may be brought out lessons as to the world's work in clothing its people. 



