178 Agricultural Instruction in tJie Public High Schools 



want something new, and seek to avoid farm life." On the other 

 hand, the pupils of a Nebraska school " like it because most of 

 them are rural pupils." The former school reports no experi- 

 mental work while the latter school does. In another school 

 " it is hard to get the pupils interested at first because most of 

 them think they know all about it." 



The fact must not be overlooked that enthusiasm on the part 

 of the teacher may be reflected not only in the attitude of his 

 pupils but sometimes in his notion of their feelings, and thus 

 give rise to a roseate but unjustified answer. Again some teach- 

 ers might fear that any but a favorable report would reflect 

 discredit on their work. Then, too, there is to be considered that 

 familiar tendency to give, however honestly and unintentionally, 

 the kind of an answer one thinks the inquirer would like to get. 



However, most answers that would fall under any of the above 

 criticisms are, perhaps, counterbalanced by the reports of teach- 

 ers not in sympathy with a study they must teach against their 

 will. A former superintendent in a small Indiana village wrote 

 that he had not been in sympathy with the movement. His con- 

 ception of education was that " life was more than meat and 

 the body more than raiment." But the demand for instruction 

 in agriculture was so insistent, so sincere, and so dignified and 

 reasonable, that it could not be ignored. So he planned to 

 put a course into operation but himself " abandoned the field of 

 general school work for the more congenial field of history and 

 psychology." 



If it be true that the life in the school should be as little 

 unlike the life outside as possible, as educators of note main- 

 tain, or, stated more positively, that the work of the school 

 should be related as nearly as possible to the outside life, it 

 must be especially true of any industrial phase of the school 

 life. It is incumbent on the agriculture taught in the high school 

 to be particularly relevant to the principal activities of the im- 

 mediate neighborhood and to give an insight into the importance, 

 if not the methods, of agricultural interests in other parts of 

 our nation. Agriculture in the broad sense includes a variety 

 of activities. More of these are represented in some localities 

 than in others. Some are much more widespread than others. 



