No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 135 



are some here whose interest in this great subject, like my 

 own, is so strong that we feel we cannot too often learn what 

 teaching is, — " teaching," in the language of an acknowl- 

 edged master of the art, " is presenting the conditions which 

 arouse certain conscious activities immediately needed for 

 mental and moral growth." 



A marked step in educational progress was taken when 

 the high school was estal)lislied. In 1826 every town con- 

 taining five hundred families was required to maintain a 

 town or high school which should differ from the old gram- 

 mar school by omitting from its curriculum the Latin and 

 Greek languages. Secretary Dickinson, in his last annual 

 report to the Board of Education, says, "It is the peculiar 

 work of the high schools to direct the learner in the acquisi- 

 tion of scientific knowledge and to the cultivation of the 

 powers of generalization and reasoning." Im})ortant as is 

 the work of the primary and grammar schools, we see that 

 they are but preparatory to that higher grade of schools in 

 which we look for the development and gro\\i;h of the mental 

 faculties. It is exceedingly unfortunate that any necessity 

 should compel a parent to withdraw his child from the pul)- 

 lic school Ijefore the child has finished the high-school course. 

 If thus withdrawn he loses an important part of the educa- 

 tional value of his course and may begin his life work 

 without the mental training or discipline that the higli- 

 scliool course is designed to give. 



The writer of one of the pai)ers read at the recent centen- 

 nial of Williams College, having characterized "the lack of 

 a collegiate education on the part of so many students in our 

 professional schools as a long-recognized and often-lamented 

 evil," goes on to say that, "taking the country at large, it 

 would appear that scarcely one-fifth of the young men who 

 are preparing to become clergymen and lawyers and only 

 about one-tenth of those who are looking forward to the 

 medical profession have received a full academic training." 

 In view of this fact the writer says, "If anything can be 

 done to bring our colleges into more effective relation to the 

 young men who are looking forward to professional careers, 

 one of the greatest wastes and weaknesses of our education 



