NOTES. 1197 



in botany and plant patbology. John Stephens, assistant agronomist in the 

 station, has resigned to accept a position with the dry land investigations of 

 the Bureau of Plant Industry of this Department. The management of the 

 arid farm experiments of the station has been placed in charge of L. A. Merrill, 

 superintendent of extension work. Following the resignation of J. A. Bexell 

 to accept a position as dean of the school of commerce and financial secretary 

 of the Oregon College, J. L. Coburn lias been appointed financial secretary and 

 John T. Caine, jr., recording secretary. 



Washington College and Station. — \V. A. Linklater has resigned to accept a 

 jiosition as animal husbandman in the Oklahoma College and Station, and H. R. 

 Watkins, assistant chemist, has resigned to accept a position as assistant 

 chemist in the Office of the Surgeon-General of the War Department. Ira P. 

 Whitney, instructor in dairying in the college, has been added to the station 

 staff as dairy expert, and will devote the summer to investigation of dairy 

 problems. 



Agricultural Education at the Cleveland Convention of the National Education 

 Association. — At the 1908 convention in Cleveland, June 2!» to July 3, an unusual 

 amount of attention was given to vocational training. As one prominent edu- 

 cator expressed it, " manual training, domestic science and art, trade, handi- 

 craft, and agricultural and technical instruction have dominated the programmes 

 and formed the chief themes of conversation." 



This interest in vocational instruction was clearly apparent not only in the 

 meetings of sections primarily organized for the consideration of the industrial 

 features of education, but also in several other section meetings and in the 

 general sessions of the association. The annual presidential address, by Nathan 

 C. Schaeffer, of Pennsylvania, dealt with Education for Avocation. The presi- 

 dent-elect of the association. Dr. L. D. Harvey, has been closely identified with 

 the development of agricultural education and county agricultural schools in 

 Wisconsin. 



The standing committee of the association on industrial education for rural 

 schools submitted its third report, this including special reports by D. J. Crosby, 

 of this Office, and O. J. Kern, of Rockford, 111., on instruction in agriculture 

 as it is now being conducted in four different types of schools. The conclusions 

 of the committee based upon these special reports and upon their observation 

 of the work being done in one-room rural schools were to the effect that while 

 examples of successful industrial work in the one-room schools are reported from 

 time to time, this success is due almost entirely to the preparation and person- 

 ality of the teacher, and that while successful experiments in school gardening, 

 nature study, and elementary agriculture in such schools awaken a genex'al in- 

 terest in this subject, at the same time they are demonstrating the inadequacy of 

 this work in the district school with one teacher to meet the needs of the children 

 in rural communities. Hence " the committee can not escape the conviction 

 that adequate facilities for meeting the increasing demand for industrial educa- 

 tion must come through schools of secondary type, and that it is easier at the 

 lireseut time to secure this instruction in adequate form in schools which are 

 distinctively organized for the special work. . . . For such schools it is possible 

 to secure appropriations far in excess of what can be secured for the ordinary 

 high school or the consolidated .school. This will make it possible to conmiand 

 the services of better trained teachers and secure better equipment for work. 

 It will dignify the whole subject of industrial education in the estimation of 

 the farming i)opulation, and will open up i)Ossibilities of utilizing such schools 

 for cari'ying on this work still further than is done at present." 



The department of rural and agricultural education, which was organized in 

 Washington, D. C, in February, 1908, presented its first programme at the 



