87 
second term as a role, temporarily maintaining herself until Bhe can do some- 
thing else. The teacher must teach everything, from the alphabet to physi- 
ology, from physics to grammar. Our extension work was intended to reach 
first the country school, but the more we pushed the work the more evident it 
became that it is very difficult to reach the country school. We think the 
best that can he done is to introduce the subjects in the village and hamlet 
schools, and where they have two or three or four or five teachers, so that one 
teacher can take all of the natural-history subjects and another all of the 
mathematics, expecting it to work outward from these centers. Centralization 
is going on in New York State in three or four directions. 
A. ('. Scott, of Oklahoma. It has been said here that the existing educational 
provisions of the country community should he exhausted before the college 
should seek to duplicate any of that instruction. The question naturally arises. 
What is meant by the educational provisions of the country community V A 
question of extreme importance in the West is. What shall he done with the 
young men of IS or 10 years of age who have gone through the common schools 
but not through the high schools, and as a matter of fact do not want to go to 
the high schools? Shall a catch-all be prepared for them? Shall a preparatory 
department be provided for them where they can say they are going to college? 
That question gave us a great deal of concern in the Oklahoma college, and 
three years ago we provided a preparatory department. Two years ago we 
became ashamed of the department and dropped it, but we substituted a twenty- 
weeks' course in the subject of agriculture. We found that it was very largely 
the young men and women who went into the preparatory department and did 
no advanced scientific work in agriculture who went back to the farm. For that 
reason we established the short courses. It seems to me it will be a very long 
time before we get agriculture established in the common schools of the, country. 
What are we going to do in the meantime? I believe the present condition 
ought to be met by some such scheme as I have suggested, or the Minnesota 
scheme. We are also working in our territory on a scheme by which optional 
courses shall be given in the high school leading to the university. 
R. II. Jesse. I believe that so long as the colleges of agriculture are main- 
taining their right to use Federal money for secondary education, so long as 
they are declaring that it is good policy to do so, they will continue their sec- 
ondary schools, and will not connect with the secondary school systems of their 
States. For fifty years the University of Missouri maintained a preparatory 
department. When I came there as president, there were not six good public 
or private secondary schools in the Commonwealth, and I was assured that they 
could not be built up. Yet in the space of twelve years we have increased the 
good high schools in Missouri from 5 to 125. Missouri ought to have at least 
250 high schools. But the rate of growth has been magnificent in twelve years. 
So long as you hold on to this preparatory work and these temporary expe- 
dients you are not going to catch hold of the public school system. I think 
the one vital thing is that the colleges of agriculture, as well as the colleges 
of liberal arts, should identify themselves absolutely with the public school 
systems of their States. Meanwhile. I am not disposed to criticise those who 
employ some temporary expedients, provided they have started in the right 
direction and are going in that way as fast as they can. 
E. A. Bryan, of Washington. One of the most serious difficulties which we 
face is the fact that under the ideals of the existing four years' high school the 
student who has taken the eight years of elementary grade and four years of 
high school is led away from the ideals represented by the land-grant colleges,, 
and in most instances, unless perhaps, as may be true in Missouri, a very strong 
influence proceeding from the university or from some source secures a dif- 
