NOTES. 899 



agriculture from tlie Ontario Agricultural College receive a special grant of 

 $30 upon completing satisfactory instruction through a school garden, and to 

 plans for a summer school at Guelph to prepare teachers for this certificate. 

 Further plans for the improvement of rural education include the sending of 

 selectefl teachers from the normal schools to the agricultural college for three 

 moTiths' courses, the inaugurating of short courses for public school inspectors, 

 the encouraging of conventions of rural school trustees at the college, and the 

 instructing of high school science teachers in " the practical sciences relating to 

 agriculture." 



President Creelmau of the Ontario Agricultural College contributes a paper 

 dealing with the experiment startetl June 1, 1907, in which six graduates of 

 the college were selected to teach agriculture in six high schools of the province 

 and to serve as agricultural advisers to the farmers in the surrounding country. 

 He had just inspected the work of these instructors and he says that each is: 

 "Busy from early morning until late at night teaching in the school, meeting 

 farmers in the offices down town, writing letters to farmers all over the country, 

 arranging for short courses of instruction at home or at outside points, prepar- 

 ing plans for experimental plats for the coming summer, attending farmers' 

 institute meetings, and in every possible way putting himself in a position to 

 help the country boy and his father to bigger and higher things in his home life 

 and in his life work on the farm." He finds that where there are farm boys 

 in the classes the work is progressing most satisfactorily and believes that the 

 other activities of the instructors will prove to be of immense value to the 

 farmers and to the teachers in the small rural schools. 



The series of articles closes with three papers by three of these agricultural 

 instructors who describe the features of their work during the past year and 

 outline some of their plans for the future. 



Agricultural Education in Secondary Schools. — A description of the Winona 

 Agricultural Institute at Winona Lake, lud., by W. C. Palmer, professor of 

 agriculture and agricultural chemistry, is given in a recent numl)er of Cornell 

 Countryman. This school started in 1902 as an academy with an agricultural 

 department and a 0-year course of study, but in 1906 it was changed into a 

 purely agricultui*al school with a 2-year course. The course of study is largely 

 technical and practical, and includes class-room recitations, laboratory and 

 field work, and field trips. It is divided into three departments, viz, (1) agri- 

 culture and agricultural chemistry, (2) dairying and animal husbandry, and (3) 

 horticulture and forestry. The school is open to young men who have graduated 

 from the eighth grade, but most of the students at present in the school have had 

 some high school training. 



The Winnebago County School of Agriculture was opened No\ember 4, 1907, 

 at Winneconne, Wis., with an enrollment of 30 pupils, which has since incx'eased 

 to 54. During the last week in February, in cooperation with the State college 

 of agriculture, the school held a farmers' course and housekeepers' conference 

 which was attended by .366 students and many visitors. Among the students 

 were representatives from S counties in Wisconsin and 1 in Minnesota. 



Agricultural Education in Mexico. — Romulo Escobar, one of the founders and 

 until recently direc-tor of the agricultural school at Ciudad .Jaurez. Chihuahua, 

 Mexico, which was opened in October, 1905, has recently been appointed by 

 President Diaz to direct the agricultural college and experiment station work 

 in the Republic of Mexico, and is at present reorganizing the National School 

 of Agriculture near Mexico City. He plans to inaugurate a modern course of 

 study in the National School of Agriculture and also to establish other schools 

 in the Republic. 



