6o Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools 



High Schools Teaching Agriculture Three of Four Years 



This section is devoted to the description of the work of 

 four schools in which the course in agriculture is planned to 

 extend through the last three years of the course or through 

 the entire four years, and in which the curriculum is well under 

 way. The school in the town of Petersham, Mass., and also 

 the John Swaney School of Magnolia Township in Putnam 

 County, Illinois,^ had been in existence two years at the time 

 this study was made, and minister to districts distinctly rural. 

 The school at Waterford,^ Pa., is maintained jointly by the 

 borough and township and has a history of almost a century. 

 Its agricultural department was established in 1904. The 

 Guthrie County High School, at Panora, Iowa, is thirty years 

 old and has been offering courses in agriculture for several 

 years, long enough to have all scheduled courses in full operation. 



One sees then that these schools, widely distributed as they 

 are, may appropriately be taken to represent the most progressive 

 efforts to work out through the high school this important prob- 

 lem in districts widely separate and different in their interests. 



Petersham (Mass.) High School 



The Town of Petersham has a population of about 900. The 

 high-school enrollment was 18 the first year and 37 the second. 

 Forty-five is the estimate made for the third year's enrollment. 

 The courses leading to graduation are the college preparatory, 

 the academic, and a short course of three years. Agriculture 

 or domestic science and floriculture are required in all years of 

 the last two courses, replacing the required Latin of the first 

 course. The total number of hours required will be 320 hours 

 of agriculture for the boys, and for the girls, 240 hours of 

 domestic science and 80 of floriculture. These are in addition 

 to the required work in botany, zoology, physiology, physics and 

 chemistry. The curriculum is shown on page 63. At present 



' The John Swaney School was visited also by County Superintendent 

 O. J. Kern, and the Waterford High School by D. J. Crosby of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, whose comments on the schools and the 

 class work they saw form part of the report of the standing committee 

 of the National Education Association on Industrial Education in 

 Schools for Rural Communities, for 1908. 



