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SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



May, 1921. 



High School Agricultural Education 



By J. W. GIBSON.. 

 Director of Elementary Agricultiiral Education for 

 British Coliunbia. 



Agriculture as a school subject has not met with 

 uninterrupted success in Canada. From the standpoint 

 of its relationship to the production of wealth and of 

 national prosperity it has maintained its position and 

 has had universal recognition. The vocational, rather 

 than the educational, aspect of agriculture has mainly 

 been appreciated. Agriculture as a cultural or liberal- 

 izing study for both boys and girls in high school is gra- 

 dually winning its way as other sciences have done in 

 the past, but it must needs walk circumspectly. In the 

 past it has occasionally suffered from the excessive zeal 

 without knowledge of its friends and advocates and is 

 still in that position where it may, perchance, suffer 

 "from the ignorance of educated people." 



Some of the most prominent educators of the past, 

 have urged the claims of agriculture as a school sub- 

 ject, and have advocated its adoption in public and 

 high schools. Not the least of these is the founder of 

 our Canadian School system — Dr. Egerton Ryerson — 

 who held such strong convictions in the matter that he 

 iiielnded in his list of school books-one on agriculture. 



J. W. Gibson. 



published in 1845. . In the preface of this notable book 

 the following suggestive paragraph occurs: 



"The compiler has seen the youth of this country — 

 seven-eighths of whom, become, in the course of time, 

 engaged in the noblest of mere earthly employments, 

 the cultivation of the soil — pass through our schools 

 without receiving the slightest instruction in that pro- 

 fession to which they hope to devote the remainder of 

 their days. Not one of the books in whieli they learn 

 to spell or to read tells them of things which they can 

 turn to profit in their future avocation; not one of them 

 tells them of the improved modes of agriculture adopt- 

 ed by experienced farmers or of the changes which the 



ai)plicaion of science to the arts has effected since the 

 time their parents first set out in life." 



Dr. Ryerson also planned to include agriculture as 

 one of the subjects in which teachers could be prepared 

 whilst attending the normal schools. At the laying of 

 the corner stone of the Toronto Normal School in 1851 

 he stated part of his plan in the following sentences: 



"The land on which these buildings are in course of 

 erection is an entire square consisting of nearly eight 

 acres, two of which are to be devoted to a botanical 

 garden, three to agricultural experiments, and the re- 

 mainder to the buildings of the institution. It is thus 

 intended that the valuable course of lectures given in 

 the Normal School in vegetable physiology and agri- 

 cultural chemistry shall be practically illustrated on 

 the adjoining grounds in the culture of which the stu- 

 dents will take part during a portion of their hours of 

 recreation." How miserably have the provinces of 

 Canada failed to even approximate the plans of this 

 broadminded leader after more than half a centurj' 

 of boasted educational progress! 



Suitability of Work to Age and Interests of Pupils. 



iModern pedagogy attaches great importance to the 

 question of child interest. It appreciates the fact that 

 each age has its own normal stage of development and 

 seeks to meet these conditions in the work as.signed, 

 as well as in the methods used. No subject could be 

 found that is more adaptable to the e'^olviug interest 

 of children than is the subject of agriculture. It begins 

 in early school life and continues long years after school 

 and college days are over. One's education in agri- 

 culture need never be "finished" and the subject can 

 never be exhausted." The nature studies of the public 

 school provide the best and almost the essential intro- 

 duction to agriculture in the high school. "Nature 

 study," says Mrs. Comstock, "is the alphabet of agri- 

 culture and no word in that great vocation may be 

 spelled without it." It is becoming more and more 

 evident that successful instruction in agriculture in the 

 high school is conditioned by preliminary training in 

 the public school, and to this extent agriculture does 

 not differ from other regular school studies. What we 

 stand in need of today is greater attention on the part 

 of teachers to the principles of education and their 

 application in the teaching of agriculture, and for this 

 reason only professionally trained teachers should un- 

 dertake to teach agriculture either in public or high 

 schools. The time has arrived, and more than arrived, 

 when our Canadian Universities through the combined 

 efforts of their faculties of agriculture and education 

 should provide professional training in pedagogy for 

 agricultural college graduates — but that is a separate 

 question. 



The Course of Study. 



Just what to teach in the limited time allotted to 

 agriculture in the High School is a ((uestion of consider- 

 able importance, and one which presents some diffi- 

 culty. Most of those who have been held responsible 

 for the framing of cour.ses of study in agriculture seem 

 to have shown a tendency to include too many topics. 

 The selection of topics in such a comprehensive sub- 



