48 Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Sclwols 



Six were later persuaded to enter the history class. Over half 

 of these 46 were children of parents living on farms or owning 

 them. 



South Lyon (Mich.) High School 



At this point may be given an account of the work at South 

 Lyon, Mich., a village in the southern part of the state, with 

 but a few hundred more inhabitants than the Ohio villages 

 already described, and similar to them in many ways. Stock 

 raising, dairying, and trucking are the principal industries be- 

 sides general farming. The village had a rather large " retired 

 farmer " element, without representation in the public schools, 

 who opposed attempts to better the rather antiquated and 

 utterly inadequate school facilities. In contrast to this was the 

 progressive body of younger farmers who were favorable to the 

 agricultural instruction and whose children composed the 55 

 per cent non-resident portion of the high school. Most of the 

 remainder of the seventy pupils enrolled were closely identified 

 with agricultural interests. The majority of the sixteen mem- 

 bers of the agricultural class were girls of the third year. 

 Nearly all of the twelve agricultural students the previous year 

 were boys. Several of these were planning to attend the Michi- 

 gan Agricultural College on graduation. One boy living in 

 town expressed himself as having been " converted to the pro- 

 fession " through his interest in the work of the class. There 

 was little " elimination " apparent. The second year class has 

 usually been larger than the first, and all of the entering class 

 of two years before were still in school. The tuition charge 

 of $12 represents approximately the per capita cost of instruc- 

 tion. The agricultural work was in charge of the superintendent, 

 who was also principal of the high school. He very wisely 

 did not allow the school machinery to interfere with the effec- 

 tiveness of his work, and took part of a day for field work 

 whenever it seemed worth while. Visits were made to a cream- 

 ery, an agricultural implement store, and to fetock farms, a very 

 good one being within a mile of the school. The instructor's 

 teaching methods in science and mathematics seemed better 

 than those one is likely to find in most small high schools. In 



