202 



Journal of Af/rii-nlturc. Victoria. \ 10 May, 1918. 



funds largely obtained from its own citizens. Again, at Gardena, 14 

 miles from Los Angeles, which is the centre of a rich agricultural 

 district, a high school was used to train boys in agriculture. A farm 

 of 20 acres of rich land was purchased and add(>d to the school, and 

 each year from 80 to 100 boys are given a course of training in agricul- 

 ture. It may be claimed that uniform training and uniform standards 

 of teaching naturally arise from a system of centralized control, and 

 that the cost of administration is less in such a system. The Cali- 

 fornians say, however, that you get greater etJicneiicy with local govern- 

 ment, and, as far as uniformity is concerned, the high-school graduate 

 of, say, Ohio, has almost exactly the same standard of training as the 

 high-school graduate df Idaho or California. Moreover, it is clainifd 

 that, in a big country like the United States, it is wise to give each 

 community the opportunity to develop its own educational ideals. It 

 promotes among the counties and States healthy rivalry, and when one 

 county adopts any progressive idea, or initiates some successful move- 

 ment, it is soon followed and tested in thousands of other counties. In 

 a centralized system they say local leadership and progress would tend 

 to be stifled. 



Main Channel, Patterson Irrigation Colony. 



(B) AoRICULTUKK IN THE ScHOOLS. 



Education in California is free, secular, and compulsory from 7 to 

 14. The grades in the system of education are: — 



Primary grade, 7 to 10 years. 



Grammar school grade, 11 to 14 years. 



High school grade, 15 to 18 years. 



University grade, 19 and upward. 



Graduate work, 23 to 26 years. 

 Age is recognised as it should be —as a factor in education. This is 

 a very important point in agricultural education, and yet it is a factor 

 which is commonly overlooked. In the primary schools, nature-study 

 is one of the subjects of instruction. The children are taught to observe 

 the soil, plants, flowers, animals, insects, butterflies, just as they do in 

 Victoria under Dr. Leach. 



