71 



monwealth. There is no reflection in this observation on the 

 " old stock " or on the immigrant. The statement is put for- 

 ward as a matter of fact, and shows a condition which has 

 grown, and must continue more and more to grow, out of the 

 exigencies of modern economic agriculture. 



If the office alone is not enough as a training school for 

 modern commerce, it becomes increasingly evident that, while 

 the farm must have a necessary part in agricultural education, 

 as is shown in chapters IV. and V. of this report, it is not enough 

 for the training of the prospective productive farmer. The 

 agricultural departments would undertake to render a service 

 to productive farming like that rendered the world of business 

 by the public school department of commerce. 



Open Doors of Opportunity. Mr. D. J. Crosby, specialist 

 in agricultural education of the Office of Experiment Stations, 

 Washington, D. C., has written that he hopes to see secondary 

 agricultural education throughout the country " Open at both 

 ends," open at the beginning, so that the farm boy can enter ; 

 and open at the end, so that those farm boys who desire to go 

 on to higher agricultural training shall be able to do so. 



The agricultural departments, as shown in another chapter 

 of this report, would admit any farm boy who had reached his 

 fourteenth birthday, without regard to whether or not he could 

 pass entrance examinations for admission to high school, pro- 

 vided he could demonstrate his ability to profit from the agri- 

 cultural instruction offered. This would open the door for the 

 boy who might not be " bookish," but who might be capable of 

 making excellent progress in applied science as worked out by 

 the project, or part-time, method' proposed in chapter V. of 

 this report. 



Fuller opportunity, at the same time, would be afforded 

 the boy who might be both " bookish " and " practical," for 

 advancing in both agricultural and academic training. As 

 stated in chapter V., 20 per cent, of the boy's time would be 

 definitely reserved for broadly cultural education. If a boy 

 who was training for farming valued graduation from an even 

 more strongly cultural course, one that perhaps even included 

 Latin or Greek, and if he were able to cover the ground re- 



