10 



for the investigation here reported which was made by the Legis- 

 lature of 1910, are evidence of the need of additional legislation 

 providing for this kind of agricultural education. 



8. School committees have long been authorized and em- 

 powered to provide instruction in agriculture in the public ele- 

 mentary and high schools of the State. While this training has 

 been more liberal and cultural than vocational in its aims and 

 results, it merits the hearty support of local communities in this 

 Commonwealth. 



Instruction in gardening and in other matters relating to the 

 farm should be encouraged and guided in all the elementary 

 schools of the State, where the home environment or the school 

 facilities make productive work and personal observation by the 

 pupils practicable. 



As an important aid to liberal education in all of the high 

 schools of the State, particularly in those which have a rural 

 environment, guidance and encouragement should be given, with 

 a view to the incorporation of generous proportions of agricul- 

 tural subject matter in the science instruction, and to the sym- 

 pathetic correlation of certain parts of the instruction in English, 

 history, civics and hygiene with rural life and labor, institutions 

 and progress. 



9. In order that more adequate school facilities may be pro- 

 vided in this Commonwealth for preparing those above fourteen 

 years of age for productive and profitable farming, vocational 

 agricultural departments are proposed in this report for estab- 

 lishment in existing high schools. 



The methods and vocational standards of instruction for the 

 development of such agricultural departments have nowhere 

 been tried in the exact form proposed in this report. Such 

 approximations to this kind of training as have been found in 

 this State and elsewhere, and the very general interest in 

 and approval of it found among representative Massachusetts 

 farmers with whom it has been discussed, are believed to war- 

 rant giving the department type a thorough trial. 



The experimental character of the department type, it will 

 be noticed, has been recognized in the proposed codification of 

 the law. It is designed that the problems which would con- 

 front such departments shall be carefully studied, that their 

 work shall be thoroughly done, and that no department shall 



