8o AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



One magazine addressed the following question to a num- 

 ber of prominent educators : "What new subject or new method 

 or new direction of effort or new tendency in educational work 

 is of most value and significance and now needs most emphasis 

 and encouragement?" (113). Nineteen replies were received. 

 As most of the writers were college presidents various college 

 problems were mentioned as of greatest importance but no two 

 proposed the same problem. The only subject that was men- 

 tioned by more than three was practical education, summed up 

 as follows: Trade work in public schools; interest in rural 

 schools; practical studies; agriculture for rural schools; reach- 

 ing all the people; teaching every man his job. 



A good account of the present status of agricultural educa- 

 tion in elementary and secondary schools appeared under the 

 title "Catching Them Young" (114). After describing some 

 recent progress in farming methods the author adds : 



Of what value is this knowledge if the sons and daughters are to quit 

 the farm, leaving corn-belt prosperity to the haphazard agriculture of the 

 city-born and of transplanting foreigners who find conditions and climate 

 vastly different from those of the fatherland? Therefore the corn-belt 

 has at last set itself to raising that greater and more valuable crop of farm 

 boys and farm girls who find material comforts and ample financial recom- 

 pense on the farm. The greatest factor in the raising of this new crop is 



education But the farm boys and girls in order to be interested must 



be caught young. Before they are old enough to enter the land-grant col- 

 leges the lure of the city has entered their minds and the mischief is done. 

 Raising bumper crops of corn and oats, the typically agricultural states of 

 America have heretofore failed to raise satisfactory crops of stay-at-home 

 boys and girls. 



An editorial in another magazine revives the criticism which 

 appeared against rural schools a few years before. It is entitled 

 "The Martian and the Farm" (115) and makes the remarks of 

 the supposed Martian who is represented as visiting an ordinary 

 country school the basis of some pointed comments on the rural 

 schools : 



I notice that these Americans seem to think the raising of crops to be 

 quite unnecessary; and that they are applying their remarkable intelligence 



