f 



30 CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS 



of high school. The last point is of great im- 

 portance because of the comparative absence in 

 country communities of opportunity near at 

 hand for good high-school training. 



Agricultural education is distinctively techni- 

 cal, not in the restricted sense of mere technique, 

 or even of applied science, but in the sense that 

 it must be frankly vocational. It has to do with 

 the preparation of men and women for the 

 business of farming and for life in the rural 

 community. 



Agricultural education should begin in the 

 primary school. In this school the point of view, 

 however, should be broadly pedagogical rather 

 than immediately vocational. Fortunately, the 

 wise teaching of nature-study, the training of 

 pupils to know and to love nature, the constant 

 illustrations from the rural environment, the 

 continual appeal to personal observation and 

 experience, absolute loyalty to the farm point 

 of view, are not only sound pedagogy, but form 

 the best possible background for future voca- 

 tional study. Whether we call this early work 

 "nature-study" or call it "agriculture" matters 

 less than that the fundamental principle be 

 recognized. It must first of all educate. The 

 greatest difficulty in introducing such work into 



