methods or asking present teachers to take on a new philoso- 

 phy of service. The whole school system must be redirected 

 and reconstructed from the bottom up. This means that in 

 rural districts, pupils shall be educated by means of rural sub- 

 jects as well as by other means. Of course, all this new effort 

 will come slowly (we could not assimilate it in any other way) , 

 but we must prepare for it, nevertheless. This College of 

 Agriculture should be enabled to expand its little normal 

 department so that it can contribute greatly to prepare teach- 

 ers to handle the agricultural work in the public schools of 

 New York. There is no greater work now before this College 

 of Agriculture than this. 



The needs. 



I have now suggested very briefly some of the larger groups 

 of subjects that this College of Agriculture must be prepared to 

 investigate and to teach if it is to be the kind of college that 

 you all want it to be. It will be seen how vastly has the out- 

 look of the colleges of agriculture enlarged within recent 

 years. They are not at all what they were ten years ago, even 

 five years ago ; and yet most of the criticisms of them that I 

 still hear are founded on the memories of years now past. For 

 forty years these colleges have been finding themselves and 

 trying to convince the public they are designed to serve, 

 what the field before them really is. If they have not met all 

 expectations, it is largely because their facilities have been al- 



Note.— I have stated my own convictions as to the means of training such 

 teachers in a pamphlet "On the training of persons to teach agriculture in the 

 public schools", published by the U. S. Bureau of Education, Washington, 

 1908. 



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