898 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD, 



The author believes that a maximum of efficiency at a minimum of expense 

 can best be attained when agi'iculture is put in as a department in a school 

 rather than to make the school exclusive in this line and limiting the work 

 only to prospective farmers. He contends that agriculture should be placed 

 within the reach of all young pteople, boys or girls, side by side with all 

 other cultural subjects and not segregated from the so-called cultural school. 

 Further, the student in the high school should not begin to specialize except 

 to .some extent in agriculture in the higher classes, and should be in a school 

 with broad courses and liberal electives to have full freedom of choice. 



The Gibbens schools, W. A. Bboyles (Proc. X. Dak. Ed. Assoc, 28 (1914), 

 pp. 77-80). — An account is given of the organization and work of the county 

 agricultural school at Park River, N. Dak., which is one of two such county 

 schools supported jointly by the county and the State under the Gibbens Act of 

 1911, amended in 1913 (see above). 



These schools are free to residents of the county, and teach agriculture, includ- 

 ing the study of soils, horticulture, plant life, and animal life, a system of farm 

 accounts, manual training and domestic economy, and the common branches 

 and such other branches as are necessary for the training of teachers in methods 

 of school management and provision for observation and practice in the art 

 of teaching. The schools are a continuation of an ungraded system instead 

 of a graded system and the law does not define or speak of them as high 

 schools. 



The advantages of this type of school are summetl up as follows: "The 

 county as a unit has more funds than a smaller unit and admits of more 

 systematic extension work than a larger unit. ... In attacking the question 

 of rural community life in its various phases the county .school has the great 

 advantage of a single aim. ... It has no set of grades to divide the time 

 of the executive. In its rural school work- it has the resources of the county 

 superintendent's office with its deputies to share responsibilities and give as- 

 sistance. It has no assured consistency in the form of a ninth grade coming 

 in regularly with the change of the seasons. This single-mindedness gives it 

 opportunity to concentrate its forces upon certain things — individual instruc- 

 tion and careful classification ; an elaborately planne<l and directed short 

 course, going about the county, learning of it and serving it through schools 

 and families, providing a center for rural life propaganda." 

 . Eighth annual report of the inspector of high schools to the state board of 

 education for the year ending' June 30, 1915, K. IIeywakd {Bisnuirck. 

 N. Dak.: State Ed. Dcpt., 1915, pp. 53, figs. 9). — This report includes, among 

 other material, statistical data on the enrollment, equipment, salaries, etc., 

 of the five state high schools having an agricultural department, and brief 

 reports on the school farm at Carrington. the extension work of the schools, 

 and state aid for agricultural instruction. 



It is shown that 43 high schools offered courses in agriculture in the past 

 year and that 8.5 per cent of the pupils enrolled pursuetl the work. The five 

 schools having an agricultural department report a total value of equipment 

 for agricultural instruction of .$2,850, and a total enrollment in agriculture 

 of 133, a gain of 24 over the previous year. The enrollment in agriculture in 

 all of the other state high schools for the year was 307, a gain of 65 over the 

 previous year. Each of the five schools received $2,020 state aid for its 

 agricultural department. 



What the instruction at the Royal Agricultural. Horticultural, and 

 Forestry High School is and what it should be, Z. Kamerlino {Indischc 

 Mcrruur, 38 {1915), Xos. 28, pp. 565-567: 29. pp. 585-587).— This is a discussion 

 of the curriculum of the Royal Agricultural, Horticultural, and Forestry High 



