May, 1910.] 



Education. 



a means of vocational training by 

 which the school in which it is placed 

 shall be a finishing school ? Or shall 

 both be done? I advocate that it be 

 introduced into the schools for both 

 reasons. There are difficulties in making 

 agriculture a part of the regular high 

 school curriculum, and in some schools 

 it will be a long time before that is 

 done,_ But it is worth doing. I am 

 satisfied that there is a movement now 

 setting in which arises from the interest 

 of the teachers and looks toward this 

 very thing. Some wish to teach agri- 

 cultural subjects in order that the pupil 

 may be better able to enter the agricul- 

 tural college. 



There can be but one answer to the 

 question,— Shall agriculture of second- 

 ary grade be given as a vocational 

 subject? It is needed badly. Our agri- 

 cultural colleges are doing well, and a 

 few years hence they are going to have 

 many more students than they are 

 having to-day. But as every one knows, 

 they do not meet the need of the 

 great body of young men who will 

 never go to college no matter how good 

 the course, no matter how great the 

 need of training. 



Perhaps the most important question 

 which faces us at this time is whether 

 we shall have separate schools of agri- 

 culture, or whether we shall put agri- 

 culture into existing high schools. 

 Agricultural educators and others are 

 gradually taking sides on this question, 

 and I think it is only fair to say that, 

 whereas as hort time ago the idea seemed 

 to be running in favour of separate 

 schools of agriculture, to-day some of 

 our leading men are making serious 

 objections to the separate schools of 

 agriculture and are advocating very 

 strongly that agriculture shall be put 

 into existing high schools and recognized 

 as a subject of study there. While I 

 do not expect to say the final word on 

 this question, and while in fact I hold 

 myself in readiness to change my 

 opinion, my present answer to this 

 inquiry is that we should do both. 1 

 believe keenly, to put the matter in a 

 nutshell, that we ought to place agri- 

 culture in the high schools alongside of 

 other subjects of study, but I believe 

 that at the same time we should estab- 

 lish separate schools of agriculture sub- 

 stantially of secondary grade. 



Let me state some of the advantages 

 of the separate schools. In the first 

 place they emphasize vocation. It 

 seems to me that the ordinary course of 

 study in the high school, in the nature 

 of things cannot, and perhaps should 

 pot, give due emphasis to a particular 



calling. The special task of the high 

 school is to give foundation training. 

 Inevitably the demand for vocational 

 education will compel high schools to 

 offer also courses fitting pupils 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 agri- 

 cultural school. It takes a large equip- 

 ment for the proper study of agriculture 

 if the course is to fit one for the business. 

 Pew 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 somethiug 

 that drives home the fact that they are 

 studying agriculture, that they are 

 preparing for cheir vocation. 



And finally, separate schools of agri- 

 culture will naturally evolve into finish- 

 ing schools for young men who cannot 

 go to college. 1 do not believe our public 

 high schools will ever devote sufficient 

 attention to any one vocation like agri- 

 culture 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 we supply it by that 

 form of school which definitely makes 

 agriculture, as a life work, its principal 

 objects and aim. 



There are many objections raised to 

 separate schools of agriculture. 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 pupils who need this 

 work. You will have the anomaly also 

 of an agricultural school or courses of 

 study in a city environment. Of course 

 it would be possible for the city to estab- 

 lish its high school out in the suburbs in 

 the rux'al section, but when you have 

 done that you have to all intents and 

 purposes made a separate high school. 



