l66 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



ing are made to work together toward the one end. Only two 

 pure sciences are offered in the agricultural course, namely, bot- 

 any and zoology in the third year, and chemistry in the fourth 

 year. Thus horticulture precedes botany, while zoology is given 

 coordinately with animal husbandry. Physics is evidently in- 

 cluded in the agricultural courses under various heads, as soil 

 physics in the first year and farm-mechanics in the manual train- 

 ing course of the second year. This course seems to be well 

 worked out, but the place of zoology and botany in the third 

 year seems to be unfortunate, if the work is to be useful in agri- 

 culture. Apparently there is little correlation attempted in Illi- 

 nois schools, except at the Freeport school, though an external 

 study of courses cannot, of course, be conclusive. 



Turning now to the data obtainable from Mr. Robison, the only 

 point which I shall attempt to make is that of the correlation of 

 agriculture with other sciences. Is there any attempt at corre- 

 lation, or are the courses in agriculture put in where most con- 

 venient, or, perhaps, put in the first year to attract students from 

 the farm — as a sort of bait? Mr. Robison has data from about 

 one-third of the high schools in the United States then giving 

 agriculture in the curriculum — enough, as he says, to indicate the 

 "current practice" of the schools. Out of 104 schools which give 

 only one year to agriculture, 49 place it in the first year, which, 

 of course, renders correlation with other sciences impossible. 

 Thirty-one more schools place agriculture in the second year, in 

 which case it is possible to precede it by physiography, a science 

 with which agriculture has comparatively little in common. If 

 we add these two classes of schools together, we find that in 80 

 out of 104 schools reporting there can be but slight correlation 

 with other subjects. Using other data, we find that agriculture 

 is preceded by physical geography in y2 out of 108 schools report- 

 ing ; preceded by botany in 33 schools ; by zoology in 5 schools ; 

 by physics in 16 schools, by physiology in 17 schools. By these 

 figures it is seen that the studies most useful to agriculture are 

 least likely to precede the subject. 



It does not seem necessary to quote further. Probably the 

 lack of some settled plan of correlating the work in science in 

 these schools is no more than is to be expected, considering the 

 fact that agriculture is but just beginning to get a foothold in the 

 curricula of high schools. But the fact that domestic science is 

 also uncorrelated with sciences which might contribute to it 

 tends to show a lack of appreciation that one science might help 



