522 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



that as a result of the present educational conditions very many of 

 the youth of the State at the best were becoming- inefficient industrial 

 workers or at the worst were drifting into criminal courses. 



Thus it was made easier for other speakers to emphasize the 

 importance of the industrial element in education as a means both of 

 holding children longer in the schools and of training them for the 

 actual duties of life, And in the discussion of industrial education it 

 was made plain that in order to prepare the children of the country 

 for life on the farm and to interest them in the business of farming as 

 a life work, the atmosphere of the rural schools must be favorable to 

 country life, and the instruction in these schools must open the minds 

 of the children to the rational interest which may be connected with 

 farming, and to the aid which the farmer may get from the application 

 of science to his art. 



Ample opportunity Avas given for the presentation of various phases 

 of the problem of agricultural education. The progress which bus 

 been made in different States and foreign countries in introducing 

 instruction in agriculture into the schools was also shown. That there 

 was great public interest in the question of agricultural education was 

 evidenced b} 7 the relatively large attention which was given to this 

 feature of the meeting by the press throughout the State. 



The importance of such a meeting at this juncture is relatively great, 

 because it gives the friends of agricultural education an opportunity 

 to reach the great body of school officers and teachers, whose support 

 must be enlisted before any scheme for agricultural instruction in the 

 public schools can be made effective in our educational system. It 

 helps, moreover, to give the general public some idea of what is 

 really involved in such instruction in the public schools and to remove 

 erroneous notions of the extent and character of the proposed 

 innovation. 



The important fact was brought out that already some instruction in 

 agriculture and closely related subjects is being successfully given in 

 quite a number of schools in California, and an organization was formed 

 for the more definite formulation of school courses in this subject for 

 use in the public schools throughout the State, 



The California meeting is an impressive evidence of the interest 

 which in many parts of the United States is now being manifested in 

 the wider diffusion of agricultural education. By bringing schoolmen 

 and farmers together to discuss this question the Californians took a 

 course well adapted to promote the cause of agricultural education, 

 and it is hoped that this line of effort may be repeated in the near 

 future in many States. 



The decision to establish an institute of animal nutrition is the latest 

 step in the direction of specialization in agricultural investigation. 



