174 Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools 



Not that it does not possess as much value in this direction as 

 other studies, but agriculture as a study may justly claim to 

 have a content of its own that is worth while. It does not need 

 the prop of a disciplinary conception of education that bids 

 fair to become obsolete. But if the administrator's idea is to 

 teach the art or trade of farming, his methods, while involving 

 the idea of doing, will probably be those of purely imitative 

 doing, and not be calculated to cultivate initiative, to give op- 

 portunities for forming and correcting judgments, nor for ac- 

 quiring a scientific habit of thought. Viewed as an instrument 

 of education, agriculture should do all these things as truly as 

 any other science is supposed to do. We must remember that 

 we are teaching children as well as subjects. 



The meaning may be made more clear by referring again to 

 a stock experiment in agriculture, one that illustrates so many 

 principles of teaching, namely top-grafting. I have mentioned 

 the study of the stem stopping with a microscopic examination 

 of the cellular structure without any attempt to show vividly 

 the function of the cambium layer of cells by having the class 

 make grafts. The practice in teaching agriculture is usually 

 for the teacher to demonstrate the mechanical process without 

 the children knowing much about the structure upon which the 

 success of the experiment depends. They may be told that the 

 scions must be inserted in the cleft at the bark, but I never heard 

 of any one having a trial experiment made of putting one scion 

 in the middle, or heart-wood portion, of the stock in order to 

 demonstrate that only at the outer part of the limb would the 

 knitting together occur. The following illustrates still better 

 how we might, but do not, teach the scientific method of 

 thought. A boy in Ohio studied at a school that was not for- 

 tunate in possessing a school garden and he had none at home, 

 but he was anxious to try the efiicacy of treating seed potatoes 

 for scab. So he volunteered to demonstrate to a neighbor, whose 

 patch did not produce well on account of scab, the value of the 

 treatment on his lot, and was permitted to do so. The owner 

 of the land was no doubt delighted with the result, and as an 

 object lesson to the landowner it was a good thing, but as a 

 school exercise for mental training it might have given greater 



