Problems of Instruction in the Secondary School i8i 



physics and chemistry, studies usually deferred until the third 

 and fourth years, and in the fact that the large proportion of 

 difficulties on this point did not appear in the reports from 

 schools teaching agriculture in the last two years of the course. 

 The fact has not been sufficiently recognized that the topics 

 in agriculture, and the treatment of those topics, must be as 

 carefully graded as the subject matter in any other branch of 

 knowledge. One principal stated, wisely it would seem, that 

 he attempted to handle but three lines, and found them not too 

 difficult for his pupils. A proper organization of courses will 

 eliminate certain topics from the work of the first years, or 

 treat them in a more elementary way. Where the simpler treat- 

 ment of soils, for instance, is given in the last grade of the 

 elementary school, it is manifestly unwise to repeat the work, 

 even in a more " advanced " manner, when it has been impossible 

 as yet for the student to gain the scientific background for more 

 advanced work. If a school can include the subject of agri- 

 culture formally in but one year, these more difficult topics 

 might much better be deferred for treatment in connection with 

 the sciences of the upper years. We may yet see high-school 

 texts, or series of texts, written in " parts," these parts one, 

 two, three, etc., not treating with completeness the various de- 

 partments of agriculture, but containing work appropriate to 

 different grades, as the seventh, eighth, tenth, and twelfth or 

 eighth, ninth, and twelfth. One of the encouraging signs is that 

 men who are not ostensibly writing texts, are rendering invalu- 

 able aid by issuing in small compass guides for practical work 

 in several restricted fields of agricultural instruction. 



Help That May be Given the Schools 



High schools are greatly in need of aid that can only be given 

 by agricultural colleges, experiment stations, and departments of 

 agriculture. It is almost impossible to obtain anywhere at a 

 reasonable cost small working collections of insects of economic 

 value, of weed seeds, and of soil-forming rocks. An occasional 

 college can be found that has, at one time or another, provided 

 such collections, but their willingness has usually outstripped 

 their appropriations. The United States Geological Survey once 



