52 Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools 



appropriated for science equipment. There are two teachers 

 in the high-school department besides the superintendent, who 

 gives it about half his time. 



Beaver Creek Township High School, Alpha, Ohio 



The Beaver Creek Township High School, at Alpha, Greene 

 County, differs from the one just described, in existing separately 

 from the graded schools, which are but partially consolidated. 

 This accounts for the fact that the pupils are not transported 

 in wagons as in Wayne Township, but drive their own horses. 

 The thirty animals used are housed in comfortable stables, built 

 on one corner of the school grounds at a cost of $i,ooo. In 

 the high school building provision is made for home economics 

 and manual training in the basement. The equipment of the 

 latter consists of twenty benches and tools. There is no in- 

 debtedness nor will there be any for the addition that may 

 have to be built to accommodate the manual training. The 

 present school levy is six mills on a valuation of $1,800,000. 



The campus consists of five acres or more of partially cleared 

 forest with a few apple trees. The high school is of eighteen 

 years' standing. The teaching staff consists of two teachers 

 besides the superintendent, who gives half his time to the ele- 

 mentary schools. The 52 pupils are practically all from farm 

 homes, as there are but two small hamlets of a hundred or less 

 each in the township. The agricultural class numbered nine. 

 The succeeding class was expected to enroll about 20 students. 

 While the class of the current year had all of the botany except 

 plant analysis in the fall, the next class is to take up the agri- 

 culture in the first half of the second year. It will be preceded 

 as heretofore by a half-year of physical geography in the first 

 year. None of this work is elective. 



Most of the experiments in the text were performed, many 

 by the pupils individually. The text used is one of the more 

 recent ones of distinctly high-school grade. The pupils went 

 into the fields and selected the corn to be used for testing. The 

 corn was judged on score cards ruled by the pupils for the 

 purpose. This work was not competitive. Individual study 

 was made of the vitality of seeds, using corn, oats, wheat, etc. 



