and sinew, have increased agricultural production, have ex- 

 tended human prosperity, and have made the farm a field 

 wherein scientific knowledge finds abundant application. 



Many a scientist has, within the last half-century, enriched 

 humanity by his contributions to effective farm production. 

 The work of our own national government in agricultural re- 

 search and in spreading a knowledge of approved methods con- 

 stitutes a most cheering sign of governmental activity. 



It is evident that, along these and allied lines, it is possible 

 to build up a field of study which as a part of liberal educa- 

 tion would easily rank with certain subjects now taught with 

 great effort in the public high schools of rural communities. 



3. Science Laboratory Illustrations from Agriculture. - 

 Agriculture must increasingly be considered as a field of applied 

 science. Physical and commercial geography, botany, zoology, 

 bacteriology, physiology, chemistry, economics, have numerous 

 important applications in agriculture, and many of these appli- 

 cations are so concrete and simple as to constitute excellent lab- 

 oratory illustrations. 



It is not strange that seekers for more satisfactory methods 

 of teaching science should turn preferably to agriculture for 

 suggestion and material. It has become more and more evi- 

 dent that science cannot be very effectively taught to secondary 

 students strictly in its " pure " form. Children of the adoles- 

 cent stage of development apparently respond more satisfactorily 

 to that science teaching which begins with applications and con- 

 crete cases, and then merges into generalizations, principles and 

 laws. We know that this is the historic order in the evolution of 

 scientific knowledge, and it is not improbable that in the main 

 the pedagogic order must follow the historic order. 



In the high school attempts are being made in many places to 

 organize general science for first or second year instruction. 

 This course consists in some instances merely of topics selected 

 from various sciences; in others it is based on subjects, like 

 physical geography, which involve principles and applications 

 from many sciences. 



A more satisfactory procedure, in the view of many educators, 

 will be to take the subject of agriculture, abounding in direct 



