EDUCATIONAL PERIODICALS 71 



group is very meager (Barnard's Journal excepted). A few of 

 the earlier articles discuss how agricultural education might be 

 gradually developed in the elementary and secondary schools. 

 Some work of an extension character was regarded at that time 

 (19001901) as the most feasible and practicable, nature-study, 

 reading courses, itinerant schools, and short courses being sug- 

 gested as the best means of creating an interest in the subject 



(93, 94). 



A little later the place of agriculture in our public-school 

 system is carefully considered with conclusions favorable to its 

 introduction (95). In the meantime the subject is being rapidly 

 introduced in our schools, and certain tendencies are arising that 

 are viewed with some alarm because they are not in harmony 

 with the national policy in school matters. An editorial in one 

 periodical calls attention to some of the dangers arising from the 

 establishment of agricultural high schools : 



If the new type of work means the establishment of a separate system 

 of high schools, the existing high schools will be sapped of the very means 



of their existence There is one other and more urgent reason why 



a separate class of high schools must not be allowed to spring up. Just 

 as sure as they do they will breed social distinctions and cause stratifications 

 in society. It has been our boast that children of all nationalities, occupa- 

 tions, and creeds enter our schoolroom doors and emerge together as 

 American citizens. The American public school is the greatest factor in 

 developing American citizenship that we possess, and its function in de- 

 veloping American citizenship is greater than teaching arithmetic, Latin, 

 or trades. Social efficiency is much more needed just now than business 



efficiency. But alas, too many are thinking only of business acumen 



The one who argues for the establishment of a separate system of agri- 

 cultural high schools or separate industrial high schools is wittingly or un- 

 wittingly an enemy to our present high schools and to true democracy (96, 

 PP. 57-59). 



The implication in this editorial that existing high schools 

 furnish all that is really needed in secondary education is open to 

 question, and soon brings a rejoinder: 



I am afraid that the distinctions are here or have got to come, and 

 that the high schools which are nothing more than college preparatory 



