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derive greatest profit who brings to the work the richest store of 

 previous practical farm experience; but even with the best-pre- 

 pared pupil it will not be safe to suppose that farm experience 

 of the younger years will be found fixed and vivid in the mem- 

 ory, to be drawn upon at will, as the classroom discussions shift 

 now to one phase and now to another of farming. 



Past experience may aid in the work, and will do so to the 

 extent to which that experience was intelligent and to the extent 

 to which it remains vivid. Practical farming and the book 

 study of the subject, concurrently carried on under the direction 

 of a specially prepared instructor, appear to be the only certain 

 method of securing these ends. Thinking may refer back to 

 this experience to some extent ; it must to some extent anticipate 

 future activity; but in the main it is believed that the training 

 of the agricutural school, to be effective, must at once provide, 

 and thereafter concurrently interrelate, as far as possible, these 

 two supplementary processes, directed farm practice and 

 study about that practice. 



Provisions for Proper Farm Practice. How many school 

 authorities secure for pupils seeking preparation for profitable 

 agriculture properly directed experience in farming processes? 

 Agricultural schools of every type, in order to be effective, 

 should, it is believed, provide at least a small equipment on or 

 near the school premises, for observation and demonstration work 

 in correct methods of farming. Such an equipment would be 

 possible in the typical rural community. A few communities 

 may be sufficiently prosperous to establish and maintain agri- 

 cultural schools equipped with the farming plant, equipment, 

 animals and materials necessary to diversified and effective 

 training in the arts of agriculture. Such an outlay of public 

 money probably lies, if not beyond the resources, at least be- 

 yond the civic power, of the typical rural community which 

 most needs agricultural education. 



If agricultural schools could be equipped with extensive 

 school farms, it would be necessary, in order to secure the best 

 results, that pupils should devote a considerable portion of their 

 time, now employed at home, particularly in the growing sea- 

 son, to directed activities on the school premises. But it would 



