SOME TEXT-BOOKS FOR SECONDARY-SCHOOL 

 AGRICULTURE 



BY C. H. ROBISON 

 Fellow in Teachers College, Columbia University 



A few years ago a demand arose in many schools for certain instruction, 

 which for convenience we now call * 'elementary agriculture." In many 

 other quarters a demand arose for '^agriculture" without anyone having a 

 very clear notion of what the word meant. Out of the confusion has come 

 two types of text-books representing two widely different viewpoints, with 

 a comparatively recent attempt to produce something combining the good 

 features of each. In one of these types of books abstract principles claim 

 most attention; the other is purely informational or encyclopedic. 



A majority of the books are intended for the elementary schools, since it 

 seems to have been thought that the typically rural schools, must be altogether 

 elementary ones. The ''common schools" are the ones that stood in the 

 eyes of lawmakers who have endeavored to settle the question for the educa- 

 tion of theVural population. But two facts not heretofore given much recogni- 

 tion are coming into prominence: One is that in an intelligent farming com-; 

 munity a large clientage helps to support the village high schools, whose 

 courses have very little, outside of a little English, some history, and a small 

 amount of "review arithmetic," to offer which is at all suited to the commun- 

 ity's needs. Another fact, strangely overlooked, is that we cannot success- 

 fully modify a curriculum, even by legislative enactment, by the cart-before- 

 the-horse method of pushing a new study into the course, until the teachers 

 have been prepared to handle it. Public opinion need not be considered 

 here, as it is much ahead of the teachers' preparation, in the teaching of agri- 

 culture at least. That legislation is wise which recognizes itself as represent- 

 ing a public opinion in advance of the teachers' preparation, and which pro- 

 vides adequate means for affording the teachers the necessary relief 



A recognition of this state of affairs has given us the three books more 

 suitable than the others for high and normal schools, which are the particular 

 subjects of this review. 



Professor L. H. Bailey, was the first prominent exponent of the study of 

 agriculture below the college, and the foremost exponent of one type of 

 elementary agriculture in particular. His formulation of his own ideal has 

 been more precise than has been that of any one else; and his book 

 ("Principles of Agriculture") is a consistent embodiment of that ideal. 



