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great advantage to be gained from home-project work is the fact that the work is done out of the schoolroom and is centered upon the actual process in agriculture in the field and the barn at home, which means, not only that the teacher and the pupil are interested in the work in hand, but that the parents are drawn in, in a way which makes everybody a participant in the things which are to be done. I have had a great deal of conversation with quite a wide variety of people who are interested in agriculture from the teaching point of view on the question of the advantages and disadvantages of home-project work, its strength and its weakness. I find that the people with whom I have talkt may be roughly divided into two groups: the first group may be said to be mechanically minded, and its members fall easily into beaten paths, carrying out with success definite instructions. The other group is composed of those people who look upon agricultural instruction as a developing field of work in which there are no main traveled roads or scarcely blazed trails to lead them in that work, and consequently they are thrown upon their own initiative and resources to work out the very best things possible in this field.

One question has been put to all of these people: "Are you satisfied that home-project work is the best type of practical work for school people to engage in, in agriculture ?" One group, in answer to that question, said "yes," the other "no."

In order to see whether this was a state of mind true only of the teaching class, I began to ask questions of people who were directly engaged in agriculture people who had boys in school or beyond school-and was very much gratified to find that the farmers themselves had something of the same mental stretch toward something more valuable in agriculture for their boys and girls than had yet been achieved. The following is a conversation with a good type of farmer, named Miller, who lives six or seven miles from town in Dunn County, Wisconsin. I askt him these questions with the intention of getting his personal expression on two points: "Did your sons go to agricultural school?"

"Yes."

"Did they carry out home projects ?"

"Yes."

"Would you, on the basis of that practical work, be willing to turn over the corn crop, the pig crop, or the butter crop on your farm to your son for him to manage and handle ?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"That experience was too small."

"What would you desire for your son's practical farm experience thru his school training then?"

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Something that would give him connection with all the work of the farm; not one crop or one portion of farm work, but all the items that make

up

farm business. I would want him to learn how to manage all the business of the farm and take care of the special things in their time and turn as a successful farmer must."

There you have it. "Home-project work too small-something bigger needed."

The conversation continued:

"You get good farm help?"

"Yes."

"What do you mean by 'good help'?"

"They take an interest in the farm. They work well and take care of things. They know what is going on all about the farm."

"How do you get such help?"

"I hire my men on a partnership sharing basis in the production of the farm."

"If your son's agricultural instructor askt you to take your son in on such a partnership basis, would you do it?"

"Would I? I wish I had the chance."

There it is "a substitute in operation." Why not give all these fathers a chance to take their sons into the business on the same kind of a partnership basis on which they hire their help? I have yet to find one who will maintain that such an experience with a small unit of agricultural work is satisfactory in the preparation of an individual who expects to make farm work his business. The reason for this opinion is just what has been said that the type of work represented by the home project, while it is good so far as it goes, fails to go far enough. It is piece work and special work on which any amount of time may be spent if necessary, and to which attention can be given at any time it may become necessary to attend to it, while in the actual practice of agriculture the dealings are not with these small units of work which can be given attention just at the time when they demand it. Instead there are a dozen other things which must be attended to at approximately the same time.

I want you to take recognition of the fact, and I believe thoroly that it is a fact, that it is mostly the one-time office boys who now sit in the managers' chairs in the business world. It is not the fellow who was an expert in the packing department, or an expert in the sales department, or an expert in the accounting department.

In my work in Wisconsin in connection with the State Board for Vocational Education, for which I serve as state supervisor of vocational agricultural instruction, we have succeeded in putting this desire for greater things in the nature of home work for students in agriculture on a real and practical basis. The number of boys who have been enroled in these partnerships up to the present date I am unable to give definitely, but I know of five counties in the state in which there are such partnership arrangements.

THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION WITH A FORECAST OF ITS DEVELOPMENT DURING ADOLESCENCE

DAVID SNEDDEN, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, N.Y.

The last fifteen years have been the toddling, teething stage of growth of vocational education. It has naturally been subject to many of the diseases of childhood. At times it was not certain that the infant would live; and some have doubted whether it was worth raising. The present writer can say with good grace that it has been a noisy brat; and he is well aware that some of its foster-nurses have made uninterested people rather tired by their predictions as to how the infant would some day become a lusty youth who would whip the other and less vulgar youths in the vicinity and even make some respectable older folks look to their laurels.

Since the whole-hearted entry of the national government into the support and partial direction of vocational education of the kinds here under discussion the entire situation has assumed a new aspect. The infant is no longer regarded as a foundling and interloper. He is growing and learning fast. We can see now that, while he will not meekly confine himself to a corner, neither is he likely to become a bully, even if in a few cases he is given for a while the food and freedom of "dual control." He is really capable of being civilized, even tho our refined schoolmaster senses will long object to the work-a-day clothing that he must perforce wear, and to the odors of machine shop and stable that necessarily cling to him.

One of the largest illusions now prevalent in vocational education is that a vocation, once entered upon by a young person, must be followed thru life. The fact is that modern life is organized very much on a series of occupational levels, and naturally the beginner enters upon some level adapted to his immaturity and inexperience. No one seriously expects a girl of sixteen to be a school principal or a housewife; yet in many states more than half of all girls at sixteen have already entered upon full-time wage-earning in callings that are truly juvenile occupations. No one expects a youth of eighteen to be a locomotive engineer, a machine-shop foreman, or a contractor. The man who is the typical farmer at the age of forty was probably a hired worker on a farm (his father's or another's) from sixteen to twenty-five, then a tenant or renter farmer, and in middle life a farmer managing his own land and capital. In all our great manufacturing callings there exist sometimes scores of levels indicated by varying wage rates, and to a large extent advancement from one to the other is effected on the basis of increasing maturity and experience and would be greatly simplified and expedited if, preliminary to each new level, adequate specific vocational training could be provided. Even in the so-called. skilled trades-which are almost everywhere undergoing an inevitable

economic decline-the age of effective entry on apprenticeship is rising. Anciently in Europe it was in what we would now call childhood's year, and it is still as low as fourteen there. In America apprenticeship is rarely begun before sixteen, and in many cases eighteen is now preferred; yet many of those who must eventually become artisans are under necessity of contributing to their own self-support from the age of eighteen onward.

THE NEW EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE BASED ON

SOUND PEDAGOGY

WILLIAM R. HART, PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, AMHERST, MASS.

In order to set forth some of the features of the new education in agriculture certain characteristics may be noted: first, it has definite objectives; secondly, it has definite modes of procedure in the endeavor to reach its objectives; thirdly, it has a multiplicity of means and appliances to be employed and, fourthly, the new education in agriculture has a good body of sanctions which justify it.

There are at least three rather distinct objectives which may be aimed at in agricultural study: vocational intelligence, personal satisfaction, and scientific research. As to the time of beginning vocational training, intelligent choice cannot be made before the years of a moderate degree of maturity of both mind and body. The mind must be able to master what is presented and the body must be able to handle the necessary appliances. Even a superficial analysis resolves vocational agriculture into a group of agricultural vocations. These agricultural vocations may be groupt under three main heads: productive, scientific, and social.

The second objective is personal satisfaction. The study caters to one's whims and satisfies a curiosity and desire to enter new fields of learning. The study of agriculture from the standpoint of personal satisfaction may seem to be a somewhat selfish one, yet the effect upon the person who studies from this viewpoint would be to make him a better neighbor, a more genial companion, and a more desirable citizen.

A third objective is scientific motivation. From the standpoint of education this puts the study of agriculture on a plane different from that of almost all other subjects. In the production of primary raw materials agriculture is a complex of interdependent arts. Take producing corn as an example. This involves the art of preparing a seed bed, which includes the art of using certain tools, some of them so specialized as to be useless for any other purpose. It involves the art of planting, of tillage, of harvesting, of preparing for market, or of storage. In the progress of this performance there is a complete change from one set of tools and appliances to another. Each step in the process from preparing the soil to preparing the

final product for market involves the art of using one or more specialized forms of machinery. Some of these machines are moved by man power, some by animal power, and some by mechanical power. Thus in the production of corn the operator must know the arts of the process as well as the arts of directing the power used to carry on the process.

Agriculture is the "vestibule of all the sciences." First, it is the earliest in origin. Many practices in crop and animal production considered sound now were in vogue many centuries before the dawn of the physical and biological sciences as we know them today. Secondly, it contains a most suitable body of material in facts and processes for the exercise of the mind in accumulating experimental knowledge of the world. Thirdly, the mystery of the facts and processes awakens a curiosity which does not stop at merely wondering why things are so, but which seeks to know why they are This attitude of inquiry is the forerunner, the herald, of the true spirit of scientific inquiry.

So.

Sooner or later the inquisitive attitude becomes an active search. Searching is more concerned with discovering a truth than with merely solving a present difficulty. The mind passes from the consideration of things of immediate significance to the realm of reasons for related things. In short, curiosity about facts, inquisitive attitudes toward them, and the active search for an explanation of them are the ascending steps in the vestibule leading to the spacious room of pure science. In this way science or scientific research becomes a most important objective growing out of education in agriculture. This has some bearing on the method of procedure and the psychological sanctions of the theme to be discust later.

The mode of procedure in the new education in agriculture includes much more than simply methods of teaching. People engaged in many other vocations may take advantage of its messages. In addition to the various classes of persons affected, there is also an increasing definiteness in the plans of organized effort. The agencies made use of in organized effort are boys' and girls' clubs made up largely of school pupils but not confined to them, and extension projects for children, young people, and adults carried on as home enterprises under guidance. The procedure followed by these agencies has an element of informality which is more or less disturbing to some of our educational systematists. These haphazard modes of procedure are not so unsystematic as they appear. Four factors contribute to their educational value: (1) the instruction is for the most part timely or seasonal; (2) the problems are personal; (3) the information is applicable to individual needs; and (4) the knowledge imparted becomes power because it passes over into action.

Other and highly important modes of procedure are those of the special course in schools of secondary grade, the vocational schools of secondary grade, and the agricultural colleges. Thru these agencies the study of agriculture is related to the well-establisht machinery for promoting education.

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