Some Typical High Schools Teaching Agriculture 83 



mand better salaries than the board feels able to pay. The work 

 at the time of this visit was in charge of Mr. H. F. Button, 

 a graduate of the New York State College of Agriculture at 

 Cornell University, now director of the agricultural and normal 

 training high school established at Manassas, Va. His immediate 

 predecessor, Mr. H. O. Sampson,"^ a graduate of the Iowa State 

 College of Agriculture, left to enter the service of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, while another predecessor joined the staff 

 of an agricultural college. 



High Schools Teaching Agriculture Only Incidentally 



O dell {III) High School 



In addition to the schools already described, a few others 

 were visited. Three of these were academies in New Hampshire 

 and Vermont with long and honorable histories as classical 

 preparatory schools, which had more recently been giving serious 

 thought to the question of adapting themselves to modern in- 

 dustrial conditions. Their efforts had not produced results at 

 that time which can be dealt with to advantage here. 



Of several high schools claiming to give instruction in agri- 

 culture, not in special courses, but " incidentally " in the usual 

 science courses, the one at Odell, Illinois, merits some notice, 

 as it was the finest example seen of this type of instruction. 

 This type of work has called forth much derision from the ad- 

 vocates of agricultural education, and too often deservedly so. 

 But the students at Odell seemed to derive more benefit from 

 their work than do the students in the majority of schools numer- 

 ously reported from different states as requiring all students to 

 take the course in agriculture. 



Odell is a village of 1,200 in the rich corn-producing central 

 part of the state. The school is not large, enrolling only 27 

 students. The courses in botany and zoology were each eighteen 

 weeks in length. In the former course were considered soils 

 and their cultivation, and grain farming versus live stock farm- 

 ing; and in the latter, the topics of birds and injurious insects. 



* See Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1905, pp. 264-4, 

 for an illustrated description of the work of Mr. Sampson, especially 

 in animal husbandry, at the Waterford High School. 



