babcock] AGRICULTURE IX SECONDARY SCHOOLS 2II 



thousand dollars was made and the erection of buildings was 

 begun. The last Legislature made another liberal appropriation 

 of more than two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Most of 

 the second and third appropriations is being used in the erection 

 of buildings. The University Farm School held its first session 

 last spring with an attendance of eighteen boys. This fall the 

 second year opened with an enrollment of forty boys and young 

 men. The average age is eighteen. The prospects for growth 

 are very encouraging. Besides the school of agriculture the 

 annual farmers' short courses are held regularly at the university, 

 farm and this brings a large number of progressive men from all 

 parts of the state to Davis, with the result that the school itself is 

 rapidly becoming more widely known. Advanced college stu- 

 dents from the University also spend a portion of their course at 

 Davis under the supervision of a corps of experts detailed from 

 the Experiment Station at Berkeley. 



Thus we have the successful beginning of a system of special 

 agricultural schools of secondary rank, which should make glad 

 the heart of Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Hays and all 

 others who believe that secondary instruction in agriculture 

 should be given in just such institutions. 



But it seems that California is never satisfied to do things by 

 halves. In her present efforts to extend agricultural teaching, as 

 in the first attempts to grow oranges, all kinds and methods had 

 to be tried, and many experiments made. Her experience in 

 oranges has resulted in the supremacy of just two types, the 

 navel and the Valencia. But there was a time when ten or a 

 dozen sorts were considered promising. So it is today in Califor- 

 nia with the secondary teaching of agriculture. The special 

 agricultural school seems to be a success. Just to what extent 

 agricultural instruction will become an organic part of the com- 

 plete secondary-school system of the State remains to be seen. 

 But the prospect is strong that at least two methods of incorpora- 

 ting the agricultural among the other phases of our high-school 

 instruction will be followed with success. The effect of this will 

 be to influence the trend of natural science teaching in all schools 

 more and more as time goes on. 



Before taking up these two methods in detail, we should pause 

 to give due allowance of credit to the University of California for 

 the part it has taken in this evolutionary process. In the action 



