IO FARM DEVELOPMENT 



farms, provide dormitories, or allow the pupils to 

 board in the adjoining town, are of secondary grade, 

 and are called agricultural high schools. They receive 

 students from consolidated rural schools and from the 

 district rural schools, also from village and town schools, 

 most of whom return to the fatm, but they also prepare 

 students to enter the agricultural college. The State 

 agricultural colleges constitute the fourth class. In a 

 few States they are separate institutions ; in others they 

 are joined with colleges of mechanic arts and colleges of 

 science; and in yet other cases the agricultural college 

 is one of a group of colleges making up the State uni- 

 versity. 



In the district rural school some subjects relating to 

 agriculture and home making may be successfully taught 

 by well-prepared teachers. Some rather inexpensive 

 equipment can be afforded, and the practical facilities of 

 the farm and the farm home may be used extensively. 

 Here the preparation of the teacher is the paramount 

 consideration. 



The consolidated rural school, or farm school, receives 

 pupils from a district four to six miles across. It has a 

 ten-acre farm, a four or five-room school building, a 

 cottage for the principal and small farm buildings. On 

 the half of the school farm which is used for a combined 

 campus and farmstead, there are groves, orchards, gar- 

 dens, ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers and ample 

 playgrounds. On the other half, are field crops on min- 

 iature fields and plats. The pupils, under the instruction 

 of the teacher who is trained to teach agriculture, use all 

 these plantings as a working laboratory. The older 

 pupils attend school only six months and the alternating 

 six months they help raise crops on the home farm. 

 The principal can help the parents supervise their work 

 and make the summer a truly educational period of 

 apprenticeship in the actual business of farming. In like 



