EDITORIAL. 209 



the student's powers of judgment through a broad and sympathetic 

 comprehension of basic social interests. 



If this outline of great expectations should seem extravagantly 

 broad, it should be remembered that agriculture, though taught in 

 upvrard of four hundred and thirty public high schools and acad- 

 emies in this country, is yet in its infancy as a high school subject. 

 It is not to be compared with any other present-day addition to the 

 traditional programme of the three R's which lacks its fundamental 

 relation to life. It is more than fulfilling its early promise wherever 

 ])ut on trial under wise direction, and it goes far toward satisfying 

 the demand for an education that is visibly related to the real life 

 of the individual and the community, a demand that will sooner or 

 later enforce itself upon the schools. 



Those who would deprecate the consequences of a narrow bread- 

 and-butter type and policy of vocational instruction should be the 

 first to welcome a real and rational integration of agricultural science 

 with the high school curriculum, in a way that may serve to rein- 

 force and vitalize the old-time studies that ought to survive in our 

 modern educational evolution. 



