EDITORIAL. O 



be u mutter of interest to those who iire following the progress of 

 sceondury agrieiiltural education. It is the more signitieant from the 

 fact that the institution is iiot a technical school and that this is the first 

 attempt to establish an industrial course. It is another indication of 

 the hold which this grade of agricultural education is taking. 



The school has for some time had a farm of al^out a thousand acres, 

 which is carried on quite largely with student labor. In consideration 

 of the low rate of tuition and board, pupils are expected to work about 

 tif teen hours a week and many of the boys have put in this time on the 

 farm. As now operated it is said to yield a good profit. Much of the 

 product finds a market at the boys' and girls' departments of the school 

 and the Bilde school, which together have and aggregate of about nine 

 hundred students. There is at present a dairy of al)out tAVO hundred 

 cows, and fruit orchards of considerable proportions, together with a 

 cannery for patting up vegetables, especially tomatoes, peas, and corn. 



There has, however, been no theoretical instruction in agriculture 

 or horticulture. Mr. Harry Hayward, a graduate of the school and 

 for several months past assistant chief of the Dairy Division of this 

 Department, has now been called to the school as director of the agri- 

 cultural department, and entered upon his duties August 1. The 

 department will be organized into divisions for horticulture, dairying, 

 and field work; and courses will be offered in different branches of 

 agriculture, which it is understood will be mainh'^ elective. In other 

 Avords, onlv such of the 425 bo3"s in the school as are especially inter- 

 ested in agriculture will be required to take the courses, although 

 others may be required to work on the farm as heretofore. 



It is planned to carry the farm on with student labor to even a greater 

 extent than in the past, with practical foremen at the head of the sev- 

 eral departments. As the school runs practical!}' the year round, there 

 being three terras of sixteen weeks each, this plan will be feasible. 



An effort will be made to make the instruction as practical as experi- 

 ence and the conditions surrounding the school will permit. A con- 

 siderable number of the pupils come from the farming districts and 

 expect to return to the farm, and the courses will be planned with 

 special reference to their needs. With the equipment already at hand 

 the opportunity" would seem to be an unusual one for demonstrating 

 the high value of agricultural courses in secondary schools. 



