CHAPTER XVI 



AN UNTILLED FIELD IN AMERICAN EDUCA 

 TION 



Agricultural education in this country has 

 thus far been an attempt to apply a knowledge 

 of the laws of the so-called "natural" sciences 

 to the practical operations of the farm. Com 

 paratively little attention has been paid to the 

 application of the principles of the "social" 

 sciences to the life of the farmer. All this is 

 partly explained by the fact that the natural 

 sciences were fairly well developed when the 

 needs of the farmer called the scientist to work 

 with and for the man behind the plow, when a 

 vanishing soil fertility summoned the chemist to 

 the service of the grain grower, when the improve 

 ment of breeds of stock and races of plants began 

 to appeal to the biologist. Moreover, these 

 practical applications of the physical and bio 

 logical sciences are, and always will be, a funda 

 mental necessity in the agricultural question. 



But in the farm problem we cannot afford to 

 ignore the economic and sociological phases. 

 While it may be true that the practical success 

 216 



