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3. Procedure for choosing Locations for Vocational Agri- 

 cultural Schools. Other desirable locations for both agricul- 

 tural schools and agricultural departments will undoubtedly be 

 brought to view. The lists above given simply make record of 

 those possible centers which have most readily singled them- 

 selves out, owing to certain obvious, and, as a rule, peculiarly 

 advantageous, local conditions. 



ISTo serious work could be expected of any community in the 

 direction of a definite canvass of its specific requirements and 

 possibilities, in the absence of legislation fixing the general 

 policy of the State as to the desirability of establishing a sys- 

 tem of agricultural schools throughout the Commonwealth. 

 Such legislation might be expected to follow the submission of 

 this report. For those conducting the preliminary investiga- 

 tions leading to this report to have urged such canvasses would 

 have been to enter the field of propaganda, a field construed 

 to be foreign to the present purpose. 



In the event of favorable action by the Legislature on the 

 establishment of the system of vocational agricultural schools 

 recommended in this report, the procedure for choosing a loca- 

 tion for a school or a department would probably be somewhat 

 as follows : 



(1) A local committee interested in the subject might peti- 

 tion the Board of Education for a conference. Such a commit- 

 tee might be the regular school committee, acting through the 

 superintendent of schools ; or it might be a group of interested 

 citizens, such as members of a grange or of a board of trade. 



(2) The conference might be expected to result (a) in a 

 careful canvass of the local farming conditions and the local 

 market demands for agricultural products; and (&) in the 

 tentative formulation of a course of training which appeared 

 to be suited to the farming needs of the particular locality. 



(3) It might then be advisable that a careful census of the 

 local school population should be made, for the purpose of 

 estimating the number of boys just approaching the fourteenth 

 birthday or just past it, who would enroll in a school which 

 should provide such a course of training as that tentatively 

 formulated. 



(4) With the list of prospective students in hand, the next 



