2 BULLETIN" 346, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUBE. 



demanding attention. 1 . Many teachers and investigators have felt 

 that a wider use should be made of the home farm in the teaching of 

 agriculture. It is the aim of this bulletin to give suggestions toward 

 making the home farm a more definite factor in agricultural instruc- 

 tion through what is known as the home-project plan. In his study 

 of this plan the writer has gleaned many suggestions from the work 

 done in Massachusetts and New York. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOME-PROJECT IDEA. 



The part-time method in industrial education. — In recent years con- 

 siderable attention has been given to European methods of vocational 

 education, with a result that new methods have been introduced into 

 this country and more attention has been given methods already used 

 here to a limited extent. One of theSe methods is the part-time 

 cooperative plan of industrial education. Under this method there 

 is cooperation between the school and the factory or industrial center, 

 so that students may spend part of their time in school and part of 

 their time in the factory or shop. The work of school and shop are 

 supplementary to each other. As the part-time idea is an effort to 

 bring the school and factory together, so the home-project plan is an 

 effort to bring the home and school together. The farm may be con- 

 sidered as the industrial center of the country. The home-project 

 plan may be considered as an effort to utilize this center in agri- 

 cultural education. 



The project idea in science teaching. — Agriculture has followed 

 science in its methods of teaching. As science has been taught in the 

 high school mostly through the textbook and laboratory method, so 

 the study of agriculture has been a study of books accompanied by 

 laboratory exercises. In recent years progressive teachers of science 

 have made an effort to break away from textbooks and formal 

 laboratory work and adapt their teaching to the environment of their 

 students. Students have been assigned special problems at home 

 which would involve the principles studied at school. These prob- 

 lems were called projects. When electricity was studied in a certain 

 school one student was given the wiring of his father's house as a 

 project in which he could apply the principles learned. Another 

 student made a study of the germination of seeds and other problems 

 involved in his home garden in connection with a study of plant 

 growth. It was apparent that if this method were successful in 

 science teaching that it could be applied even more successfully in 

 the teaching of agriculture. 



i For a general study of the problems arising in the use of land in connection with agricultural teaching, 

 see the following reports of a special committee appointed to investigate the subject by the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Agricultural Teaching: TJ. S. Bur. Ed. Bui. 522 (1913), pp. 24-39; 

 601 (1914), pp. 49-76. See also The Use of Land in Teaching Agriculture in Secondary Schools, U. S. Dept. 

 Agr. Bui. 213 (1915). 



