20 Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools 



It seems reasonable that the term " agricultural high school " 

 should be restricted to an institution that requires all of its 

 students to take agriculture, that does not require them to take 

 the classics, or still better does not even teach the classics at 

 all, that does require its students to devote to agriculture at least 

 one-fourth of the entire time, that is, to give it as much atten- 

 tion as any other full-time subject, and that makes definite pro- 

 vision for practice in farm operation. It is equally important 

 that the school should make ample provision for the other 

 sciences. Some schools are attempting to make " agriculture " 

 take the place of the foundation sciences. A school using this 

 title should devote at least one-third or one-half of its time 

 to agriculture and the related sciences. However, where insti- 

 tutions are designed by law as agricultural high schools, though 

 they are really general public high schools there is no alternative 

 but to so classify them. It is not necessary to do so in cases 

 where state departments and local boards are appropriating 

 the term without specific authorization, as in Louisiana and 

 Virginia. These cases will be treated more fully later. 



Legislation 



An examination of the school laws of a large number of states, 

 most of them as late as 1907 or 1908, and a few later, fails to 

 show many specific references to the teaching of agriculture in 

 the general public high school. But much important legislation 

 was enacted during the sessions of 1908, 1909, and 1910. 



The state superintendent of New Jersey has ruled that agri- 

 cultural instruction comes within the intent of the act of 1903, 

 granting state aid equal to the appropriations made by the local 

 communities for industrial instruction, from $250 to $7,500.^ A 

 somewhat similar provision with a lower limit of $3,000 has 

 been in force since 1881. The remarkable thing is that no school 

 has so far taken advantage, for agricultural purposes, of this 

 most liberal provision of any state in the Union for industrial 

 education. The laws of Vermont refer to the teaching of " in- 



' Report of the committee on industrial education in schools for rural 

 communities, National Education Association. Proceedings and ad- 

 dresses, 1907, p. 434. 



