66 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



the National Government through its publications of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture and of the Bureau of Education. 



STATE AND INTERSTATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS 



There are about seventy of these associations. Some were in 

 existence long before the organization of the National Teachers' 

 Association. Most of them publish proceedings of their meet- 

 ings, but for lack of funds and other causes accounts of these 

 meetings are not always published except in local papers. 

 Enough of these proceedings, however, are available in published 

 form to trace any educational movement as reflected by the dis- 

 cussions of these meetings. One finds that agricultural education 

 began to receive attention from these associations about the 

 same time that the National Education Association became 

 actively interested in it. We find, for example, the Alabama 

 Educational Association in 1905 devoting a considerable part of 

 its program to the subject, and calling W. M. Hays to give an 

 address; the California State Teachers' Association in 1905 

 holding joint sessions with the State Farmers' Institute, and call- 

 ing L. D. Harvey and A. C. True to make addresses ; the Georgia 

 Teachers' Association in its meetings of 1903, 1906, 1907, and 

 1908 giving prominence to the subject, in 1908 holding a con- 

 ference with representative business men from forty- four of 

 the fifty counties of the state concerning the district agricultural 

 high schools. These illustrations are typical of the consideration 

 given agricultural education by most of these associations at 

 their recent meetings. Their contribution consists chiefly in 

 creating an interest in the subject. Sometimes, however, move- 

 ments are started that result in state legislation. 



It is not possible in the limits of this chapter to enter into 

 further discussion of the work of these associations, instructive 

 as it might be to follow carefully the development of agricultural 

 education as expressed by these bodies of teachers in various 

 sections of the country. 



