4 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



counters. He has made an effort to canvass the whole field 

 of agricultural education and to give a detailed exposition of 

 the agencies that are now at work in building up a rational course 

 of agricultural education. He has presented more fully than 

 anyone else the materials which define the problem and which 

 make it possible for the teacher to meet the problem intelligently. 

 The annotated bibliography at the end of the book, with text 

 references, will do much to make the best material available 

 for anyone who finds it necessary to get hold of this material 

 through independent study. Mr. Davis' statement of the work 

 that is being done by various organized agencies will make it 

 possible for the teacher to come in contact with all of the forces 

 that are working to build up this special type of training. The 

 book serves, therefore, as a general introduction to the study of 

 agricultural education. 



Professor Davis' book is not a textbook of the ordinary 

 type, in which a limited body of materials is presented in detail, 

 but it is a type of textbook which is certain to become more 

 common in our normal schools and in the teachers' libraries. It 

 is a textbook which discusses the problems of education by dis- 

 cussing the situation into which education fits and the instruments 

 that may be used in solving its problems. It is an introductory 

 encyclopedia rather than a brief summary. The student in 

 the normal school who is trained not merely to understand the 

 content of a single textbook, but to take a bibliography in hand 

 and follow its guidance into the larger body of literature, will 

 have an independent mastery of the subject which cannot be 

 gained by any simple perusal of a single textbook. Professor 

 Davis has performed a genuine service, therefore, for normal 

 schools in preparing a type of textbook which encourages the 

 student to go to the original sources, and shows him how to 

 get at the different types of material which he will need in 

 his own practical professional life. 



The teacher who has graduated from the normal school and 

 is in practical service often finds the textbooks that are offered 



