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and practical applications from many scientific fields, and to 

 organize a course of instruction in which the pupil will advance 

 from concrete experience to an appreciation of underlying scien- 

 tific principles, and also at every step become cognizant of the 

 real significance of the subject in promoting personal and social 

 well-being. An able presentation of secondary school science 

 of this kind recently appeared from the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture (Experiment Station Eecord, September, 

 1910). 



The unsatisfactory results not infrequently obtained from the 

 study of abstract mathematics and formalized physics seem 

 to justify the belief that agriculture can be used to advantage 

 as a means of approach to science, in a scheme for liberal edu- 

 cation in secondary schools. 



4. Agriculture and Wholesome Living. The conception of 

 modern liberal education involves to an increasing extent a study 

 of social conditions and of the factors that make for wholesome 

 personal and community living. 



We are in the midst of a reaction against the movement to 

 the city, and students of social economy are becoming more and 

 more convinced that the development of sound citizenship, as 

 well as of sound physique, as a nation, is dependent on a large 

 agricultural population. 



The study of agriculture as a field of human activity involves 

 constant reference to the social characteristics of rural com- 

 munities, and to the means for the better development of desir- 

 able pursuits. One important question relates to the bearing 

 on physical health of rural life and its occupations. 



5. Agriculture and the Educational Values of Concrete Ex- 

 perience. Modern education is developing a wider and better 

 psychological outlook. Education in the past has been identified 

 with instruction given in schools ; and school training has, owing 

 to the force of circumstances, been an education by means of 

 books and writing, modified in recent years by more or less 

 laboratory experience. Modern pedagogy, on the other hand, 

 maintains that academic teaching can be effective only as it 

 builds on a basis of concrete experience, obtained by a thorough 

 contact with the realities of life. 



