AN OUTLINE FOR A COURSE OF STUDY IN POULTRY 



HUSBANDRY 



PRESENTED BY JAMES E. RICE FOR THE COMMITTEE ON INSTRUCTION 



The successful teaching of Poultry Husbandry depends upon three 

 factors : the teacher, the method and the facilities. The greatest of these 

 is the teacher. The chief aim of a teacher is to inspire interest on the part 

 of the student, or, as Professor I. P. Roberts has tersely expressed it, "to 

 get the student to want something and to want it badly;" or, as Professor 

 T. F. Hunt expresses it, "interest is the digestive juice of successful teach- 

 ing;" or, as Director L. H. Bailey has said it "telling is not teaching." 

 Each of these successful, well-known educators has realized the same 

 objective point in teaching and all have been eminently successful in their 

 application of the principle. Their success and my own observation leads 

 to the conclusion that the personality of the teacher is at least of equal and 

 usually of greater importance than the subject matter taught. 



It is the teacher's obligation not only to furnish the most reliable 

 information, or to point out the way by which a student can secure the 

 facts and principles on which successful poultry husbandry is based, but 

 also to move him to want to put the acquired knowledge into effective 

 application, to kindle within him the desire for more knowledge. This 

 means that the teacher must arouse personal initiative on the part of the 

 student. When a student studies diligently, persistently and enthusiasti- 

 cally by his own motive power, the teacher's chief purpose has been 

 accomplished. To acquire facts and principles and to know how to apply 

 them is important, but to acquire the ability to go after things indepen- 

 dently and to work without being led or driven is still more important in 

 successful teaching. 



The method by which the subject is classified, simplified, emphasized 

 and illustrated will, of necessity, play an important part. The fact that 

 Poultry Husbandry, as a subject to be taught and investigated, is so new, 

 and that so little has been done in arranging the known facts so that 

 principles of general application can be made and presented in good teach- 

 ing form or pedagogical order (to use a more technical term), makes it 

 exceedingly difficult to teach the subject as it should be taught. Each 

 one who is endeavoring to teach Poultry Husbandry is obliged to blaze out 

 his own independent trail and to hew out the principles as best he may 

 while endeavoring to carry on the other strenuous activities of a growing 

 department. 



