902 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



At present eleven county high schools in the State are taking 

 advantage of this cooperative plan. Each lesson given l)v the visitor 

 presuj)poses the mastery of all former lessons, th\is making the work 

 cumulative and capable of increasing technicality. The present series 

 will be collected into a jirinted and illu.strated form which can -be 

 taught to succeeding beginners' classes in each school without ttie 

 necessity of much supervision. In this way the list of schools and 

 trained teachers is developed together, and schools that drop out of 

 the list are succeeded by new ones from the waiting list. 



Several important advantages at once suggest themselves in this 

 plan, considered as a Avhole, and the legislature has indicated its 

 approval of the experiment by passing an act granting financial aid 

 to high schools introducing agriculture, domestic science, and 

 mechanic arts. Such a plan makes effective use of existing second- 

 ary schools. It takes these schools and teachers as they are, and 

 develops the new w^ork without displacing their present mechanisms 

 or personnel. It gives opportunity for the demonstration of valu- 

 able results before calling for anything but nominal local expend- 

 itures in support of the work installed. In short, it seems perfectly 

 adapted to existing conditions while affording the means of con- 

 stantly surpassing them through the new impulse which must come 

 with the wnse introduction of agricultural instruction as a subject 

 of general cultural value in secondary schools. 



We know of no other State institution that has undertaken such a 

 plan, and the experiment will be watched with much interest. The 

 view-point which regards agriculture as a legitimate and valuable 

 addition to cultural school subjects, in addition to its A'alue for prac- 

 tical application in later life, seems to be gaining increasing ad- 

 herence. It rests upon a much more secure foundation than do the 

 arguments which suj^port the importance of so-called manual train- 

 ing as a general school subject. Aside from its informational value 

 for the student of whatever future calling, the purely practical aspect 

 of agriculture includes much more than merely a vocation. And this 

 view of the subject is clearly set forth in a quotation from an official 

 announcement of the Tennessee plan : Agriculture " is not only a 

 business but a mode of life, and no preparation for that mode of life 

 could be complete that does not include not only farm husbandry, or 

 agriculture in its strictest sense, but also much of the manual train- 

 ing peculiar to rural pursuits, hygiene and agricultural economics, 

 and even rural society, education, and general culture." 



The need of providing special assistance and instruction for teach- 

 ers who have not heretofore appreciated the educational value of 

 agriculture in the common schools, recognized in this Tennessee plan 

 of agricultural extension work, is receiving increasing recognition in 



