CHAPTER II 

 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



Agricultural education receives the attention of the Bureau 

 of Education in several ways. These may conveniently be 

 grouped under three heads : publications, land-grant colleges, and 

 legislation. 



Having little administrative authority except that relating to 

 land-grant colleges the Bureau has confined its efforts mainly 

 to its publications and correspondence. "No other educational 

 office of the world has done so extensive literary work as this 

 office," is the fine tribute paid by the Royal Prussian Commission 

 of 1904 in its report to the Prussian Parliament. The Bureau's 

 publications consist of annual reports, special reports, circulars 

 of information, and bulletins. 



The policy of the Bureau toward agricultural education re- 

 cently expressed by the commissioner applies especially to its 

 publications : 



It can do its best I think as a co-ordinating influence. It can bring to the 

 notice of less favored institutions information concerning the experience of 

 more advanced institutions. It can call attention from time to time to 

 the relation of agricultural education to general education. It can survey the 

 educational field and possibly point out dangers to be averted or weak places 

 to be strengthened. It can, finally, discover things that need doing and are not 

 attended to by any other agency, and can see that some part of such lack is 

 supplied. So much as this I hope the Bureau of Education may be able to do 

 for agricultural education. And so much as this, I may say, it will undertake 

 to do as far as its resources will permit (22, p. 53). 



The Bureau has done much already in two ways: one by 

 bringing to American educators the work of foreign countries, 

 and the other by reviewing the work being done in various parts 

 of this country. Of the former the most important are the 

 accounts of agricultural education in Austria, Belgium, Canada, 

 France, Germany, Great Britain, and Prussia. One of these 

 publications on school gardens deserves special mention (23). 



14 



