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of the feeling that education should be related directly to the affairs and necessities of life, preparing a person to live more effectively while pursuing his daily occupation.

THE SMALL RURAL SCHOOL

It is probably impossible, or at least impracticable, to introduce separate industrial subjects as such, especially agriculture, in the rural schools at present, particularly in the one-teacher district schools. Here and there a consolidated school employing two or three teachers will be able to have a special teacher of science or agriculture, but such instances will be few for many years to come.

It is practicable, however, to make local applications of the customary schoolwork to sufficient extent to meet all present demands. Let us suppose that fundamental subjects are reading, number, geography, manual training. All of these subjects can be given distinctly local and agricultural application. Good and direct application can be given in the number work and the geography work for example. After the pupil has learned the principles of arithmetic, which really are few, the remaining practice can be given just as well by means of local and agricultural number work as by means of co-partnership, middleman, and theoretical problems which now form the chief part of our textbooks. Many problems of soil fertility, soil moisture, the feeding of animals, combating insect pests, handling and marketing produce, accounting of farm enterprises, are essentially mathematical in their nature. One year's work in arithmetic could be given such an agricultural trend as, in the course of a generation, to redirect the agriculture of any state.

Good geography teaching now begins with the local environment and works out toward the universe. In former days it began with the universe and worked in toward the earth. The old methods reversed the natural processes. Now, the local environment in the agricultural country is made up very largely of farms. The principles of geography can be taught in terms of the affairs of the community in such a way as to satisfy all the requirements of agriculture in the one-teacher rural schools for the present time.

Manual training may be very largely school gardening (as already suggested), with exercises in making and caring for tools, making labels, painting, building fences, and doing a thousand and one other things that have direct application to the daily life. To be sure, many or most of the pupils in the rural schools already have manual training at home in the customary chores and other farmwork; but in order to make the home handwork educational, it should in some way be touched by the teacher. It is perfectly possible to discuss this ordinary labor in the school, to suggest better methods and to dignify it. We must distinguish between manual labor and manual training.

IN WHAT SCHOOLS AGRICULTURE MAY BE TAUGHT

In every state there should be one strong, central agricultural college which is well enough equipped to conduct the highest and best type of work in all agricultural lines with ability and enthusiasm. This college, however, cannot

be expected to carry all the rural educational activities of the commonwealth. At present, the agricultural college is called on to do primary and secondary schoolwork in the way of nature-study propaganda, winter courses, and otherwise. In time, some of this work will be done by other institutions, altho it is probable that the agricultural college, if it rises to its full opportunities, will always be the capstone of the movement for education for country life. What some of these other secondary educational enterprises may be we may now consider:

(1) The first purpose in all primary and secondary instruction should be to utilize to the fullest the general educational system of the state. All schools of the state should be open to nature-study, agricultural and other industrial work on the same conditions and terms that they are open to literary and traditional subjects. It does not follow that the industrial work should be mandatory. The reasons for utilizing the existing school system are obvious. The systems are already organized and are completely established in public opinion. Again, industrial work in the common schools should be looked on as a broad educational enterprise and not as mere training or technical or apprenticeship work. It should be recognized as such by being placed in the public schools along with other subjects. Industrial education would gain immensely in its general purpose and effect and its intention if it is thus associated with other subjects. It does not follow that because a pupil is studying a subject that pertains to the farm, he is to be a farmer. The subject is introduced in order to educate him broadly, to widen his sympathies, and interest him in the problems of life.

It is probable that the public-school system cannot meet all the demands for agricultural education; but even if it cannot do so its influence will have a tremendous effect in arousing an interest in country-life subjects and in elevating the general tone of industrial education. If the common-school systems cannot handle the agricultural work efficiently, then we shall need to develop other agencies, and some of these agencies may now be mentioned. These other agencies ought to be connected in some way with the general educational system and not be separate or parallel and competing systems. All educational work should be related and unified and made consistent.

(2) While desiring to associate the agricultural work with existing institutions, we may next consider the feasibility of introducing it in the normal schools. We are at once met with a difficulty in the fact that the phrase "normal school" does not designate the same kind of institution in different states. These schools have differentiated during the past generation until they may not be strictly comparable in different regions. What may be found to be practicable in one region, therefore, may be impracticable in another. In parts of the west the normal schools find it possible and advantageous to associate agricultural work with the traditional curriculum. In the east this is less possible, largely because of the great population of the cities which demands more teachers than the normal schools can supply. These normal schools, having their

capacities taxed to the utmost in the accustomed work, may or may not find it to their advantage to add new departments of a wholly original character.

(3) Another class of existing institutions comprises the colleges and universities of many different grades and kinds. There is a distinct tendency in many parts of the country for even denominational colleges to introduce agriculture and other industrial work. In some states it is possible that the establishment of such departments in these colleges will, in part, satisfy the needs of the state.

(4) Finally, a wholly new kind of school may be organized for the explicit purpose of teaching agriculture, domestic science, and related subjects (as we have already discussed). Such schools are represented by the schools in each of the nine congressional districts of Alabama and by the county schools that are organized and yet to be organized in the state of Wisconsin. These schools have many advantages. They can devote all their energies concretely to one line of effort. They are single and therefore conspicuous, and are not bound by tradition. They have a definite territory in which to work, the boundaries of which they can fill with good extension work. These schools usually have land and, being set aside for a specific object, they develop a first class equipment which enables them to carry the work with great efficiency. The disadvantage is that they are segregated from other educational enterprises and therefore are likely to become somewhat narrow. They cannot be expected to serve all the persons of the county or district needing country-life education, for relatively few of the children in the district can attend this school without sleeping away from home; and children fifteen years and under would better sleep at home. They are likely to become largely a local school for the town in which they are situated.

None of these agencies, with the exception of public schools, meet the needs of training for children in the primary and intermediate grades. Whether a special kind of school will be developed in time for industrial training for the younger children is a question. It would seem that everything should be left to the existing public-school system until that system proves its inability to meet the demand; as fast as that inability develops, new agencies of one kind or another must be evolved to cover the need.

There is another way whereby agricultural work can be brought to the people, and that is thru the training-classes and training-schools. In New York State, for example, there are 102 training-classes and a number of trainingschools. These training-classes are to be instructed in the entire elementary syllabus and this syllabus comprises nature-study and agriculture. The pupils in the training-classes are the ones that are likely to go directly into the rural schools. In New York State, and in many other states the normal-school teachers do not become rural-school teachers to any extent. The teachers of these training-classes are normal-school graduates. It would be better if they could have their training in agriculture and nature-study in the normal schools themselves; but whether they have school training in these subjects

or not, they will be obliged to prepare for the work if they are forced to teach it to their training-classes.

The general conclusions of the commission on Industrial and Technical Education of Massachusetts, 1906 (the whole report is a most valuable contribution to the discussion of industrial education), are as follows:

There seem to be two lines in which industrial education may be developed--thru the existing public-school system, and thru independent industrial schools. In regard to the former, the commissioner recommends that cities and towns so modify the work in the elementary schools as to include for boys and girls instruction and practice in the elements of productive industry, including agriculture and the mechanic and domestic arts, and that this instruction be of such a character as to secure from it the highest cultural, as well as the highest industrial, value; and that the work in the high schools be modified so that the instruction in mathematics, the sciences, and drawing shall show the application and use of these subjects in industrial life, with especial reference to local industries, so that the students may see that these subjects are not designed primarily and solely for academic purposes, but that they may be utilized for the purposes of practical life. That is, algebra and geometry should be so taught in the public schools as to show their relations to construction; botany to horticulture and agriculture; chemistry to agriculture, manufactures, and domestic sciences; and drawing to every form of industry.

The commission would also recommend that all towns and cities provide by new elective industrial courses in high schools, instruction in the principles of agriculture and the domestic and mechanic arts; that in addition to day courses cities and towns provide evening courses for persons already employed in trades; and that provision be made for the instruction in part-time day classes of children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years who may be employed during the remainder of the day, to the end that instruction in the principles and the practice of the arts may go on together.

II. INDUSTRIAL WORK IN RURAL SCHOOLS IN NEW ENGLAND, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, AND NEW YORK

All the states in the above group are interested in the introduction of industrial work into the rural schools but in no one of them is such work now established as an organized plan or system. The official departments of public instruction, the agricultural colleges, and the enlightened constituency of the states all feel the need of work that is adapted to the country pupil. This sentiment is rising rapidly, but it is not yet crystallized. No person seems yet to have devised any system or scheme whereby these subjects can be introduced with any great degree of satisfaction.

The industrial training-work that seems to be possible in the rural schools is of four general categories: (1) manual training of all kinds; (2) naturestudy work; (3) agricultural work; (4) some form of household or domestic work applicable chiefly to the girls.

A discussion of these subjects may properly fall under three general heads: (1) what these states officially are doing thru their departments of public instruction; (2) what individual persons or schools are doing in an independent or unattached way; (3) some conclusions or personal opinions drawn from the foregoing and other facts.

Definite statements have been secured of the attitude of state departments of education.

The eighteen inquiries suggested by the chairman of the committee of a year ago were sent to the departments of public instruction or education of the nine states comprising the above group, excepting New York. official attitude of these states may now be briefly expressed.

I. MAINE

The

The state of Maine has adopted an extensive syllabus for nature-studies from the first grade thru the nine grades. This syllabus is very largely agricultural. The state law requires teachers in rural schools to pass an examination in agriculture. The state law has required industrial education for some fifteen years. The course of study, including the nature-study and its agricultural bearings, is generally adopted in the country schools and some results are beginning to be obtained. There are no special schools in the state designed to train teachers for this particular kind of work. A number of cities in the state have given special emphasis to the industrial work but apparently none of the rural districts have given great attention to it. The superintendent of public instruction for Maine thinks that school gardening is the most feasible and valuable part of the work for the present. The School Improvement League of Maine does much work in the line of agricultural and other industrial training. The five normal schools also do regular work in agriculture.

2. NEW HAMPSHIRE

The State Program of Studies has outlines of work in both nature-study and elementary agriculture. This document has been published about eighteen months, and either it or its equivalent is in use by about 75 per cent. of the enrollment of the state. A considerable proportion of these schools follow the course of nature-study substantially as it is here laid down. Generally speaking, however, much better work in this subject is done in the cities than in the country towns, owing to the generally superior quality of the teachers in the urban sections.

The course in elementary agriculture is being adopted tentatively here and there about the state, largely depending upon the personal interest and ambition of the teacher. It is impossible to say just how extensive this work is, or how well it is taught. I have not very much confidence in the quality of the teaching as yet.

At the State Normal School and in several of the cities and larger towns good work in school gardening is done, and in most places the same is made an integral part of the work of the school, being closely correlated with arithmetic, drawing, nature-study, and so on.

The central control of the common-school work is at a minimum in New Hampshire; it could scarcely be less. The local school board is supreme in all matters relating to the common schools, and the function of the state superintendent is, in the main, purely advisory.

In the case of secondary schools it is different. All secondary institutions, in order to be recognized as public institutions, must be approved

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