] Problems of Instruction in the Secondary School 147 



follow the precedent set by the special schools of Oklahoma. 

 But so long as state universities and state departments of edu- 

 cation place such manifestly weak four-year schools on their 

 accredited lists as they occasionally do, even now, so long must 

 we expect local pride to insist on the three- or four-year high 

 school, even though it has but one teacher, with the consequent 

 outcry against the special agricultural school as the enemy of 

 the present public-school system. 



The general high schools maintained by counties and a few 

 of the wealthier townships present a somewhat different problem. 

 There is no doubt that some of these are doing very strong 

 work, a few of them already having experimental plats of 

 several acres. Personal observation has justified the conclusion 

 that along agricultural lines instruction just as pedagogical, 

 equipment just as good, and instructors just as capable, are 

 sometimes found in general public high schools, as in some 

 agricultural schools existing in the same towns with high schools 

 not teaching agriculture ; and that too in spite of the fact that 

 the non-specialized high schools teaching agriculture received 

 no state subsidy. But we find a parallel to this seeming diffi- 

 culty of local high schools duplicating the work of a large dis- 

 trict agricultural school in the existence of city normal training 

 classes, and county normal training schools working in the 

 territory tributory to state normal schools with no jealousy or 

 waste of effort, as each ministers to a somewhat different need, 

 and both do not succeed in supplying the demand for trained 

 teachers. New York with 13 state normal schools, has about 

 70 local training classes; Nebraska's 2 state normal schools are 

 supplemented by more than 100 high-school training classes; 

 Michigan with 4 state normals has over 40 training classes ; 

 while 24 counties of Wisconsin find that her 7 state normals 

 are unable to meet their demands. Whether the establishment 

 of special schools would discourage the introduction of agri- 

 culture into the regular high schools of the district is a matter 

 upon which at present we can not argue from known facts. 



The reader will note that all of the considerations mentioned 

 above are purely of an administrative nature. Important argu- 

 ments of another sort have been urged both for and against 



