STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS 53 



ence work as sufficient to meet the demands for agricultural 

 instruction in the training of elementary teachers, and are work- 

 ing with this end in view. Some of the normal schools of Cali- 

 fornia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other states, and 

 many of those schools now offering courses in agriculture, have 

 made substantial progress in the readjustment of science work. 

 Instruction in agriculture as a separate subject in normal 

 schools is now in an experimental stage. Yet certain work and 

 methods seem to have proved successful. The first publication 

 of work adapted to normal schools was in the form of a textbook 

 based on teaching experience in the Kirksville (Mo.) State 

 Normal School ( 1 76) . Recently a very concrete treatment of the 

 problem has appeared as a government publication. It is an 

 account of what is actually being done and how it is done in a 

 typical normal school. The writer says in his introduction, 



The aim of the normal school is to prepare young men and women to 

 teach in the elementary schools of the state. The young people who attend 

 come from farms or smaller towns, and when they go out to teach they are 

 called upon to give instruction in what is known as elementary agriculture. 

 To meet this demand, a department of agriculture was established four 

 years ago. The course at first extended through one term's work but has 

 been lengthened until practically two full years are now devoted to agri- 

 cultural instruction. The work has attracted many young people, and the 

 success with which they have subsequently instructed others along these 

 lines indicate that the instruction has been effective. Not all the problems 

 in teaching agriculture have been solved but it may justly be claimed that 

 a few of the more difficult of them have been solved (68). 



Other similar publications of successful practice which have been 

 tested by the work of students who have become teachers will 

 contribute much toward the pedagogical efficiency of the subject. 

 From the standpoint of methods of teaching the subject in 

 the public school, little has been done. A very promising begin- 

 ning of the study of this question was made at the Peru (Neb.) 

 State Normal School in February, 1909, when the Normal Agri- 

 cultural Society was organized. The purpose of this society is 

 to aid teachers in "handling the new subject of agriculture in 



