Agricultural Finance & Co-operation. 544 



[December, 1911. 



trial future if the Government will cover 

 it. This seems to us to be the very spirit 

 we have been hopefully anticipating. 

 If the legislature fails to respond and go 

 partners in this economic adventure, 

 then that body will be guilty of the 

 admission that the majority of its mem- 

 bers have less faith in the country's 

 industrial future than the individual 

 Filipino who is willing to put his money 

 in it. 



EDUCATION FOR THE COUNTRY 

 LIFE. 



(From Nature, No, 2,194, Vol. 88, 

 November 16, 1911.) 

 The Teaching of Agriculture in the 

 High School. — By Garland A. Bricker, 

 pp. XXV+202. (New York: The Mac- 

 millan Co., London : Macmillan & Co., 

 Ltd., 1911.) Price 4s. Qd. net. 



Students of rural affairs have long 

 realised that much dissatisfaction exists 

 in country districts with our present 

 system of education. In whatever way 

 it is judged, according to its critics, it 

 has failed ; the children sent out from 

 the country schools are not better fitted 

 for work on the land than their fathers 

 were; on the contrary, they are kept 

 at desk work during the period when 

 it is supposed that their respective 

 faculties are at the best, and when they 

 would; on the land, most rapidly learn 

 the ways of animals, of plants, and of 

 soils. Even the friends of the system 

 will concede that it has been evolved 

 without any special regard for country 

 requirements, and without taking ac- 

 count of the fundamental differences 

 in habits ot thought and in points of 

 view between the dwellers in the town 

 and those in the country. 



More and more it is being realised that 

 the future development of the rural 

 district, or to put it still more widely, 

 of the country civilisation, must run on 

 different lines from that of the city, and 

 experiments are therefore being made to 

 evolve a system of education that shall 

 train children to lead the life of the 

 country. The experimental scale is 

 largest in the States, as one might ex- 

 pect, and in the book before us Mr. 

 Bricker has collected such of the mate- 

 rial as is at present available, thus use- 

 fully filling a gap in our education liter- 

 ature. It is, of course, as yet too soon 

 to speak about results, but during the 

 experimental period it is useful for edu- 

 cationists to know what their American 

 confreres are doing. 



Of the elementry school but little is 

 said. The nature study idea is for the 

 present the best we have, and has 



already a copious literature of its own. 

 The work of the elementary school, ac- 

 cording to the author, should confine 

 itself to an elementary study of the com- 

 mon things of the farm, field, and forest. 

 Something of the relative importance 

 of these things to man should be studied 

 and fixed in the mind of the child before 

 he leaves school. It is in the secondary 

 school, or, as it is here called, the high 

 school, that the scholars will take up 

 agriculture as such, but there is no break 

 in the sequence of studies because agri- 

 culture will be looked upon as nature- 

 study plus utility. But the study of 

 agriculture is to be an education and 

 not simply a manual training. 



" If the essence of true culture is to 

 see the fundamental and eternal shining 

 out through the seemingly trivial and 

 transitory, there is no subject better 

 adapted to provide culture than the 

 subject of agriculture." 



To be treated in this broad way, agri- 

 culture requires a larger place in the 

 school curriculum than the established 

 secondary schools are able or willing 

 to give it ; hence the necessity for 

 separate agricultural schools. Two possi- 

 ble dangers are indicated; specialised 

 schools may emphasise class distinctions 

 unworthy of a democratic country ; edu- 

 cation that makes a strong appeal to 

 economic motives may be harmful if it 

 places its powerful sanction on self- 

 seeking ideals. The purely practical 

 man, of course, will ask : Of what use 

 are culture and adornment if the power 

 to earn a livelihood is lacking ? But 

 this must not be the point of view of 

 the agricultural teacher. He must 

 rather insist on the other question : Ot 

 what use is the best capacity to make a 

 living without a corresponding power to 

 make life worth while ? and make agri- 

 culture a cultural as well as a vocational 

 subject. In short, the agricultural 

 secondary school is to be the directive 

 and constructive agent of the new rural 

 civilisation that the best men in the 

 States (and, for that matter, in this 

 country also) are endeavouring to foster. 



A chapter is devoted to the description 

 of schools already established, They 

 are, as one would expect, of several 

 types, but in all of them boys and girls 

 are educated together, entering at the 

 age of thirteen or fourteen, and remain- 

 ing for three or four years. Agriculture 

 for the boys and household science for 

 the girls form the respective centres of 

 the courses, and the education is made 

 as real as possible, i.e., the thing itself, 

 whether a horse, a maize seed, or a 

 growing crop is before the class, and 

 not simply a picture. 



