STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS 49 



fact that so many who attend the normal school for part of the 

 course drop out and become teachers in rural schools? For 

 example, in the school just referred to, the instruction is evidently 

 adjusted to meet the needs of students who expect to teach in 

 city schools. No agriculture is taught although "multitudes 

 of the undergraduates" become teachers in rural schools, and in 

 the state itself agriculture is the chief industry. 



The development of agricultural instruction in state normal 

 schools has on the whole kept pace with the growth of the general 

 interest in the subject. It is hard to say just when this subject 

 was first taken up. Probably the first institution to begin this 

 work under the name of agriculture was the Rock Hill State 

 Normal School of South Carolina, which offered courses in agri- 

 culture as early as 1895. The Johnson State Normal School of 

 Vermont offered its first course in agriculture in 1901, and about 

 this time the subject was introduced in some of the state normal 

 schools of the Middle West (62). 



In 1906 a report on "Preparation of Teachers to Give Instruc- 

 tion in Elementary Agriculture" was prepared for the Joint Board 

 of the California State Normal Schools trustees (63). This re- 

 port showed that the normal schools of Minnesota, North Dakota, 

 Nebraska, Missouri, and South Carolina were attempting to 

 prepare teachers to give instruction in elementary agriculture; 

 that some attention was being given to the subject in the normal 

 schools of Illinois, Utah, and Oklahoma ; that nothing was being 

 done to furnish such training in the schools of Iowa, Kansas, 

 Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Alabama, North Carolina, or 

 New York, but that several of these schools were, however, 

 getting ready to undertake the work as soon as possible. 



In a study of ninety-one state normal schools reported to the 

 National Education Association in 1907, it was shown that 

 seventy-five believed in an instruction in agriculture, and were 

 either giving it in some form or desired to do so. Sixty-one of 

 this number were either offering courses or had made plans for 

 such courses for the following year. Seven of these were giving 



