UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 13 



leges and graduate schools has been well expressed by Assistant 

 Secretary Willet M. Hays in a recent address (19, pp. 4, 5). 

 He says : 



A movement is well begun to organize better, as a part of our great 

 American school system, the secondary schools as to meet especially the 

 needs of country life. This movement contemplates that, below and leading 

 to our more than 6b state colleges of agriculture already established, we 

 shall have 300 to 400 agricultural finishing schools practically one in each 

 country congressional district of ten or more counties, either separate or 

 as a strong department of an existing institution 



But vastly more important is the larger movement to establish a system 

 of consolidated rural and village schools, and of courses in agriculture in 

 town and city schools so near the homes of farm youth that something 

 of instruction in agriculture, in home economics, and in social and civil 

 affairs, as well as in the accepted subjects of a so-called general education, 

 shall be taught to all the boys and girls of the farm. To meet this first 

 need the consolidated rural school in the open country and the consolida- 

 tion of rural schools about the villages and cities is rising rapidly into 

 prominence along with the vocational high school; and many city and non- 

 public schools of secondary and higher grade are seeking to add agricul- 

 tural instruction to their courses of study 



It is conceded that the large and important task of supplying trained 

 teachers for approximately 30,000 consolidated rural schools in our rich 

 rural communities, for thousands of town and city schools, for 100,000 

 small rural schools in isolated and sparsely settled communities, for 300 or 

 400 large agricultural high schools, for 150 state normal schools, and for 

 60 state colleges of agriculture may be taken up in a practical way and 

 solved in one or two decades. The demand and organization for training 

 teachers going forward together will meet with only the usual pioneering 

 difficulties. 



