206 EXPEEIMENT STATION EECORD. 



all students on a parity with the other humanities, would not long be 

 regarded as strange and unwarranted. And the first year of such a 

 course, if equivalent work has not been done in the lower grade, could 

 well be made to serve as the introduction to all the other high school 

 sciences. So much of agriculture as is embraced in this first-year- 

 science conception should be known to every student, boy or girl, in 

 every other high school course, as a matter of general intelligence, in- 

 formation, and culture. Though the high-school girl be destined to 

 live her life in a city home, perhaps never to work with her own 

 hands, saneness of educational ideal requires that she should at least 

 know the source-materials of her daily bread and means of shelter. 



Equally, the future man of any occupation should be educated to 

 the understanding of the fundamental relation of agriculture to all 

 other industries and vocations. At least one year's work in dis- 

 tinctive domestic science and household economy for every girl should 

 accompany this first year's work in general agriculture. Either line 

 of these industrial sciences could then be systematically developed 

 from this introduction for those who wished to elect the distinctive 

 agricultural or domestic courses, and with such motived introduction 

 the high school course in general science could be economically, ra- 

 tionally, and pedagogically presented in the remaining years of the 

 course. Agriculture is not merely " general science " but general 

 science with visualized, practical application as an educational in- 

 ducement to its undertaking and fullest prosecution. Once the boy 

 or girl can clearly see that such study actually relates himself and all 

 the other school subjects to the practical affairs of real family and 

 world life, we may expect him to remain in school so long as con- 

 ditions permit him therein to cultivate and enlarge the field of his 

 own personal interest in self-education. 



It has been incidentally suggested in this discussion that agriculture 

 may be used as first-year science work as early as the seventh grade, 

 and continued in the eighth. The advantages of such a plan deserve 

 more than incidental reference. 



There is nothing sacred in the usual eight-year and four-year 

 grouping of elementary and secondary instruction. Its faithful fol- 

 lowing is doubtless responsible for much of the " elimination " of 

 pupils which commonly occurs between grammar school and high, 

 school. The six-year division of the curriculum is just as logical 

 and far more psychological and pedagogical, and this division point 

 is definitely favored by the best modern educational thought. 



The following brief quotations bear out this point. Dean J. E. 

 Russell says: "A fundamental course of six years, at once cultural 

 and preparatory to the widest possible range of differentiated courses 

 beginning with the seventh grade, is the chief desideratum of our 



