118 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



foundation training. Inevitably the demand for vocational educa- 

 tion will compel high schools to offer also courses fitting jiupils 

 for various occupations. But almost as inevitably the occupational 

 courses will be segregated. Whether or not the separation shall 

 be so marked that an entirely new school shall be set apart for a 

 given vocation or set of vocations is a question to be determined 

 entirely by circumstances. Some towns can afford the separate 

 schools, some cannot. 



In the second place, the separate school is likely to have more 

 adequate equipment for specialized purposes. It is difficult for 

 the average high school to procure adequate land, animals, crops, 

 teachers. The separate high school of agriculture must have 

 those things, merely to justify its existence as an agricultural school. 

 It takes a large equipment for the proper study of agriculture if 

 the course is to fit one for the business. Few high schools can 

 afford the expense. 



In the third place, separate schools will have the agricultural 

 atmosphere. Students will think, act and dream in terms of 

 agriculture. Whichever way they turn they come upon something 

 that drives home the fact that they are studying agriculture, that 

 they are preparing for their vocation. 



And finally, separate schools of agriculture will naturally evolve 

 into finishing schools for young men who cannot go to college. I 

 do not believe our public high schools will ever devote sufficient 

 attention to any one vocation like agriculture to make it possible 

 for them to train the number of men who ought to be trained for 

 work upon the farm. It seems to me imperative that we recognize 

 this need and that Ave supply it by that form of school which defi- 

 nitely makes agriculture, as a life work, its principal object and aim. 



There are many objections raised to separate schools of agri- 

 culture. One of them is that the high schools can do this work 

 well enough. In the first place, however, you must remember 

 that this equipment costs money. Our larger high schools are in 

 the city, and even if they put agriculture into the high schools they 

 are bound to reach only a small proportion of the })upils who need 

 this work. You Avill have the anomaly also of an agricultural 

 school, or coiu'ses of study, in a city environment. Of course it 

 would be possible for the city to establish its high school out in the 



