CHAPTER XII 

 BOYS' AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 



The actual introduction of agricultural subjects into the public 

 schools has developed along two lines, one indirect and informal, 

 the other direct and formal. They may be regarded as two 

 stages of one development, for experience seems to indicate that 

 creating an interest informally by means of boys' agricultural 

 clubs is often, if not always, the most successful method of 

 introducing the study of agriculture into the schools of a com- 

 munity. 



Indeed, in many places where formal instruction has failed 

 boys' clubs have been a great success. This is well illustrated 

 in Louisiana. In that state, although the teaching of agricul- 

 ture has been required since 1898, it has not received much 

 serious attention in the elementary schools. But boys' clubs are 

 being organized in every parish in the state, one parish school 

 boys' club, for example, enrolling during the present year 555 

 members. This form of agricultural instruction is extending 

 rapidly over the entire country, and is becoming a very impor- 

 tant extension work in education as well as in agriculture. It 

 tends to ally itself more and more with the public schools, until 

 finally some more or less formal instruction becomes a regular 

 part of the school work. 



Thus in Ohio the state superintendent of agricultural extension work 

 writes that most boys' and girls' club activities are now conducted as a part 

 of the school work and that agricultural clubs as such are becoming a thing 

 of the past, so that no separate records or statistics are now generally 

 kept in the state (141, p. 12). 



Two good accounts of the agricultural club movement have 

 been published by the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 one tracing its development to 1904 (6.1), the other from 1904 

 to 1910 (141). The following discussion will therefore be con- 



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