692 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



can be used in the poorest type of country schools. If you have a school 

 building which it is impossible to heat in winter, of course you can't grow 

 plants in the winter. Some of the exercises can be used in city schools. 

 To make good use of these exercises in a complete way you must have 

 a schoolho.use that is fairly warm through the week and other things of 

 that sort. Then, of course, this is not material which can be used with 

 very young children. It is really intended to be used in a common school 

 which is graded to a certain extent at least, in the seventh or eighth 

 grade. That is, for children anywhere from twelve to fifteen years of age. 

 I don't think I will take the time any more to go into the matter to call 

 attention to its imperfections. Of course, this work has been taken up 

 in "a, great many places already. 



Then, a number of good elementary text-books have been prepared 

 and I am informed on good authority that one of these text-books has 

 already reached an edition of 200,000 copies, and I know it is being used 

 very extensively, and with very considerable success in a number of 

 states. Of course, in elementary schools we can do but little in teaching 

 that which relates directly to agriculture, so we must supplement the 

 elementary school as far as possible with the high school. Now, the high 

 school is practically a new institution in this country, although it is fa- 

 vored with a considerable number of pupils. If you had gone back, I 

 think, about fifteen years you would have found the number of pupils at- 

 tending high school in this country, but then the high schools were 

 chiefly in the larger cities and did not exceed 200,000 of the entire popu- 

 lation. In the course of the next ten years the number had risen to over 

 600,000 and today we have probably 800,000 students in our high schools. 

 That shows how rapidly people have taken to the idea that the public 

 should support elementary education. 



Now, if secondary education is a good thing for the city people, I think 

 a fair presumption would be that it is a good Oing for the country people 

 also. Now, the city high schools have been more and more modified to 

 suit the conditions of city life, until today, in many of our cities, we have 

 not only the ordinary elementary studies in the high school, but we have 

 a high school business course, and a domestic course, and a scientific 

 course, and a manual training course, and these are growing more and 

 more popular. Now, in the same way we must have this specialized edu- 

 cation for our country people. "We must introduce into these schools spe- 

 cial studies on the conditions of country life, and in these schools we can 

 teach a considerable amount of agriculture, and subjects relating thereto, 

 and there is no doubt about it; it can be done successfully. It has been 

 done in other countries, and the system of secondary agricultural educa- 

 tion now existing in a number of European countries is thoroughly suc- 

 cessful. All the students of education that have looked into this matter 

 are, I 'think, agreed on this point. We are beginning to organize such 

 schools in this country. There have been organized, I think, eight. We 

 have them connected with our agricultural colleges and we have also in a 

 number of places rural high schools. 



I cannot enter into a discussion of the best plan. Indeed, I am not sur 

 that there is a best plan. The probability is that we shall come to have 

 high schools with different agricultural courses, graded according to the 



