702 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Washington meeting. The officers elected were E. C. Bishop, deputy 

 State superintendent of public instruction of Nebraska, president; 

 D. B. Johnson, of Rockhill, S. C, vice-president, and E. E. Balcomb, 

 of Weatherford, Okla.j, secretary. 



The programme of the meeting of the Department of Superintend- 

 ence was given up very largely to agricultural and other features of 

 industrial education. The Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and 

 the United States Commissioner of Education in their greetings at 

 the opening session referred to the growing interest and importance 

 of agricultural education, and the former gave the principal address 

 at the first evening session, his subject being Agricultural Industries 

 and Home Economics in the Public Schools. In this address Pro- 

 fessor Hays showed the feasibility of providing a unified scheme of 

 instruction in agriculture and home economics, extending from the 

 primary grades through the high school to the agricultural college; 

 and explained the purpose and probable effect of pending legisla- 

 tion for the encouragement by the Federal Government of mechanic 

 arts and home economies in city schools, and aginculture and home 

 economics in agricultural high schools. 



On the third day of the convention the forenoon session was de- 

 voted to a rouiid table on agricultural education. D. A. C. True, of 

 this Office, outlined l)roadly the educational work of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. Dr. E. E: Brown, IT. S. Commissioner of 

 Education, in giving som6 notes on the training of teachers of agri- 

 culture, reiterated his conviction that this subject must eventually be 

 taught in practically all schools for country children, and discussed 

 pending legislation for the encouragement by the Federal Govern- 

 ment of instruction in agriculture, mechanic arts, and home econom- 

 ics in State normal schools. He pointed out that Federal aid to 

 colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts in the ITnited States had, 

 in his opinion, led to greatly increased local appropriation for those 

 institutions, or at least had not tended to diminish local taxation — a 

 result Avhich had been feared by opponents of Government aid to 

 education. 



The training of teachers of agriculture was also discussed by J. R. 

 Kirk, president of the State Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, 

 and K. L. Butterfield, president of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College. The latter outlined plans of cooperation between the State 

 agricultural college and one of the State normal schools in Massachu- 

 setts, for the training of teachers of agriculture. 



The Oklahoma plan to introduce agriculture into all the public 

 schools of that State was discussed by the State Superintendent of 

 Public Instruction, Hon. E. D. Cameron. D. J. Crosby, of this 

 Office, read a paper upon Cooperation Between the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture and State School Authorities to Promote Agricultural 



