290 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



keep in touch with the subordinate granges. It was probably 

 hoped, also, that a national organ would help to check the alarm- 

 ing decline in the membership. Various plans for an organ 

 were brought forward at this session; and though none of them 

 appear to have received the definite approval of the Grange, 

 the executive committee got out the first number of the Grange 

 Record in April, 1877. During the first year this paper was 

 issued as a monthly in editions of about fifteen thousand copies. 

 Only five hundred of these were paid for by subscribers, the 

 remainder being sent gratuitously to state, county, and sub- 

 ordinate granges. 1 



THE GRANGE AND THE SCHOOLS 



The educational activities of the Grange were not confined 

 to the improvement of its members, for the order, from the first, 

 took a decided interest in the schools, and especially in the 

 country schools and the agricultural colleges. With regard to 

 the former, the attitude of the order was one of encouragement 

 and support. As a general rule, better teachers, better text- 

 books and the introduction of practical agricultural subjects 

 into the curricula were called for. Thus a committee on educa- 

 tion of the Maine State Grange favored uniform text-books, 

 better teachers, and the teaching of the elements of agricultural 

 chemistry in the public schools, while the North Carolina State 

 Grange adopted a resolution calling for instruction in a variety 

 of subjects " necessary to the intelligent regulation and manage- 

 ment of the farm . . . and the household." 2 During the latter 

 part of the decade the National Grange began to take an active 

 interest in the subject of agricultural education, and resolutions 

 advising Patrons to endeavor to have the study of the elementary 

 principles of agriculture introduced into the public schools 

 were adopted in 1878 and 1879. In 1880 the committee on 



1 National Grange, Proceedings, ix. 55, x. 86, xi. 40 (1875-77). 



2 See Ibid. xiii. 25, 37, 85, 99, in, 112, xiv. 79, xvi. 43 (1879-82); Martin, 

 Grange Movement, 470; State grange proceedings: Maine, vi. 29-32 (1879); North 

 Carolina, iii. 28 (1876); New Hampshire, vii (1880). See also Carr, Patrons of 

 Husbandry, 200. 



