35 



I\ T . 



CO-OPERATION BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOME FARM 



NECESSARY TO AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM 



OF AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS 



FOR MASSACHUSETTS. 



The previous chapter discussed the separate agricultural 

 school and the agricultural department in a high school as 

 desirable types of vocational school education in agriculture for 

 Massachusetts. 



It is the purpose of the present chapter to point out why 

 co-operation between the school and the home farm is necessary, 

 in order to make the work of such schools effective. 



Vocational education is education that has for its controlling 

 purpose the fitting of persons of either sex for definite callings 

 or pursuits. Vocational schools of every type are coming to a 

 recognition of the fact that practice and thinking about the 

 practice, practical and technical training must go hand in hand 

 in effective vocational education. 



The reason is not far to seek. Most people learn better by 

 seeing and by doing, than from books. The experience of a con- 

 siderable portion of the pupils in industrial and agricultural 

 schools proves conclusively that many persons who have been 

 unable to master principles and theories as taught by the or- 

 dinary method of the book, have large power of mastering prin- 

 ciples when these are approached through the background of 

 their daily employment ; and that, best of all, they possess large 

 capacity to retain and apply knowledge so taught and so com- 

 prehended. 



Practice and thinking about the practice constitute the key to 

 the situation. Industrial and trade schools are securing the 

 needed practice for their pupils to-day, either through school 

 shops which they are endeavoring to make economically pro- 

 ductive, or through the actual wage-earning occupations of 

 the pupils. Thinking about the practice is secured by a prop- 

 erly selected and adjusted course of closely related studies 



