Agricultural Education ii 



There seems to be no data at present upon which to base even 

 an approximate estimate of the number of children receiving 

 instruction of this sort in elementary schools. 



There are many private institutions of special character offer- 

 ing instruction along agricultural lines. These are, for the most 

 part, of secondary grade, or of mixed secondary and elementary 

 grade, although some of the denominational schools do work 

 of college grade outside of the agriculture. Some are benevolent 

 institutions of unique character, as the Mount Hermon School, 

 founded by D. L. Moody, at Mount Hermon, Mass. ; the Baron 

 De Hirsch School at Woodbine, N. J.; Hampton Institute; Dr. 

 Washington's famous experiment at Tuskegee, and others. 

 Agricultural work of some sort is coming to hold a large place 

 in the occupational instruction of many orphanages, corrective 

 institutions, and other charitable enterprises.^^ It is a question 

 in the case of some of these how far the work is consciously 

 used as an instrument for the education of higher mental pro- 

 cesses, and how exclusively it is confined to routine manual labor 

 incidental to the operation of lands belonging to the school. 



For the purpose of this bulletin, the secondary schools may 

 be divided roughly into the following types: (i) The general, 

 public high school. (2) The private academy, which still sur- 

 vives occasionally alongside of the public high school and bids 

 for support from the same clientage, but which more often 

 performs the functions of a high school for the community. 

 The schools of this type that teach agriculture may not number 

 more than a dozen, and for many purposes of this study, may 

 be considered as belonging in the same class with the publiq 

 high school. In these non-specialized schools, the time given 

 to agriculture may vary from a four-week " normal course " 

 to a four-year course. The courses are usually a half or a 

 full year in length, elective or required. (3) The technical 

 high school of agriculture, which exists primarily to give in- 

 struction in the agricultural sciences and a certain familiarity 



»* J. R. Jewell, Agricultural Education, pp. 64, 65, 79, 83, and 84. . 



