984 Agricultural Education in the United States. [Feb., 



from old graduates of the College of Agriculture and of the short 

 courses held regularly at Cornell University, or from the teachers 

 of vocational agriculture. In one county 1,600 boys are enrolled. 



Until 1917 Agricultural Education in America was almost 

 confined to the courses in the Land Grant Colleges, the occasional 

 lectures to farmers and their wives on special subjects and the 

 Club work made possible by the Smith-Lever funds. In 1917 

 the Smith-Hughes Act was passed by Congress at Washington. 



The Smith-Hughes Act is again a gesture of impatience by the 

 layman at the hide-bound activities and machinery of some of 

 the State Boards of Education. It was the outcome of pressure 

 by a group of manufacturers, a number of Labour organisations, 

 the farmers' representatives at Washington and a Conference of 

 Domestic Science Teachers. The Act provides: — ''For the 

 promotion of vocational education; to provide for co-operation 

 with the States in the promotion of such education in agriculture 

 and the trades and industries; to provide for co-operation with 

 the States in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects; 

 and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure." For 

 the paying of salaries of teachers, supervisors and directors of 

 agricultural subjects alone $500,000 was set aside in 1918. This 

 sum will have increased annually until in 1926 it will amount to 

 $3,000,000. It is allotted to States in the proportion which their 

 rural population bears to the total rural population of the United 

 States. In the same way by 1926 $3,000,000 will be devoted to 

 the training of teachers, supervisors and directors in trade, home 

 economics and industrial subjects. Every year an additional 

 $1,000,000 is set aside for the salaries of teacher trainers. 



The scheme may well be termed a lay experiment in education, 

 for the Commissioner of Education at Washington is only one 

 of the Federal Board which also includes the Secretaries of Agri- 

 culture, Commerce and Labour together with three citizens 

 representing respectively the manufacturing, commercial, agri- 

 cultural and labour interests of the Nation. In the States the 

 composition varies greatly. In a few the educational authorities 

 were excluded altogether from the State Board, which consisted 

 entirely of la}^men. It was felt that the Boards of Education 

 would not only fail to make a move in order to fulfil the necessary 

 conditions and to draw the Federal grant, but that they might be 

 definitely opposed to the setting up of such unacademic courses. 

 In New York State the scheme is run by the Board of Education 

 in close harmony with the Board of Agriculture and in co-opera- 

 tion with the State College of Agriculture, where the teacher 



