90 Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools 



much of anything but geology, a study that has ahiiost vanished 

 from high schools. Consequently, physical geography must stand 

 on the intrinsic worth of the information of the subject. Table 

 21 shows in what year agriculture is given by schools offering 

 single courses. It will be seen that one hundred and four schools 

 give it a definite place in a single year. Forty-one allow it to 

 be taken by pupils in two or more high-school grades, and twelve 

 schools, in addition to the eleven congressional district high 

 schools of Alabama, give different agricultural courses in more 

 than one year.^ 



The above table shows that in 76, or over one-half, of the 

 high schools teaching agriculture for one year or less, the pupils 

 may or must take it in the first year, while in 64 or almost half 

 of these schools, they may or must take it in the second year. 

 In only 69 schools are first-year students excluded, and in only 

 31 schools are first and second year students excluded. Twenty- 

 nine schools open the subject to two succeeding classes, as first 

 and second, second and third, third and fourth. In most cases 

 this is due to the doubling up of classes to economize teaching 

 force, a device not confined to agriculture. 



One of the chief criticisms to be made on the administration 

 of small high schools is, that this principle of doubling classes 

 is not used oftener. It would prevent the teacher's energy from 

 being dissipated over so many small classes, and would give the 

 classes the added inspiration that comes from numbers. The 

 writer has seen teachers in rural high school spending forty 

 minutes with the one pupil composing a fourth year physics 

 class — most expensive instruction when one considers that the 

 entire third year class of three or four might have been taught 

 at the same time with no more trouble and with much greater 

 effectiveness. 



Eighty-one schools report the subject as being required ; in 

 one it is required of the boys. Sixty-three schools ofTer it as 



* At the end of the school year 1908-9, the United States Department 

 of Agriculture had reports from 47 high schools with four-year courses, 

 II with lliree-year courses, 38 with two-year courses, 90 with one full 

 year's work, and 123 with part-year courses. (See Annual Report of the 

 bffice of Experiment Stations, 1909, pp. 307-8). Most of these schools 

 are included in Table i, first and second columns, and in Table 2, pages 

 24 and 25. 



