Page images
PDF
EPUB

Schools, by C. H. Robison and F. B. Jenks; No. 14, 1913, Agricultural Instruction in Secondary Schools; No. 27, 1914, Agricultural Teaching; No. 34, 1917, Institutions in the United States giving Instruction in Agriculture, 1915-16, by A. C. Monahan and C. H. Dye; No. 38, 1917, Vocational Teachers for Secondary Schools, by Chester D. Jarvis; No. 85, 1919, Development of Agricultural Instruction in Secondary Schools, by H. P. Barrows.

NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

At the meeting of the National Education Association in Boston, Mass., in 1903 a committee was appointed to investigate and report as to what should be undertaken in the field of industrial education in schools in rural communities. This committee included L. D. Harvey, of Wisconsin; L. H. Bailey, of New York; Alfred Bayliss, of Illinois; W. T. Carrington, of Missouri; and W. M. Hays, Ássistant Secretary of Agriculture. This committee made an extended report to the association at Asbury Park, N. J., July 3, 1905. (See Experiment Station Record, vol. 17, p. 196.) Their general conclusions were as follows: In existing 1-room district schools little result can be expected from attempts to teach nature study, elementary agriculture, and handwork, and it would be unwise to make instruction in these subjects mandatory. Much more in these lines might come from such instruction in consolidated schools and high schools. The agricultural colleges should actively engage in putting available knowledge in the field of industrial education into available form for use in elementary and secondary schools. The people in rural communities should be shown the value of industrial education and the courses of study in rural schools should be framed with reference to meeting the needs of rural children. Boys' and girls' clubs, reading courses, and farmers' institutes should be promoted. Special opportunities and inducements should be offered to teachers to prepare themselves for giving instruction in industrial subjects. An articulated series of schools from the elementary school through the college should be organized for rural people. A similar committee presented a report in 1907.

From this time the association took a more active interest in agricultural education, and at Los Angeles in July, 1907, the formation of a department of rural and agricultural education was authorized. This was organized in February, 1908, at the Washington meeting of the department of superintendence, with E. C. Bishop, of Lincoln, Nebr., as president, and D. B. Johnson, of Rockhill, S. C., as vice president. At this meeting, which was attended by nearly 1,600 persons from every State and Territory, except Arizona, Nevada, and Porto Rico, a resolution was adopted indorsing "the great value of the study of agricultural subjects in the schools of the rural districts." W. M. Hays, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, gave the principal address at the first evening session, his subject being Agricultural Industries and Home Economics in the Public Schools. At a round table on agricultural education the educational work of the United States Department of Agriculture was outlined broadly by the writer, and the training of teachers of agriculture was discussed by E. E. Brown, United States Commissioner of Education; J. R. Kirk, presi

dent of the State Normal School at Kirksville, Mo.; and K. L. Butterfield, president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. D. J. Crosby, of the Office of Experiment Stations, read a paper on Cooperation between the United States Department of Agriculture and State School Authorities to Promote Agricultural Education.

The convention of the association at Cleveland, Ohio, June 29 to July 3, 1908, gave unusual attention to vocational education, and at the meeting in Denver in July, 1909, much attention was given to agricultural education. Great interest centered in the discussion regarding special agricultural schools. Dean Davenport, of Illinois, opposed their establishment on the ground that their courses must of necessity be narrow and that the tendency of such schools would be to "peasantize" the farmers. He strongly urged the teaching of agriculture in the local high schools. D. J. Crosby presented the view of the Office of Experiment Stations that agriculture should be taught in both the high schools and a limited number of special schools. The latter would be especially for mature youths who had decided to follow agricultural pursuits and would have the advantage of greater breadth and thoroughness of agricultural instruction, aided by equipment of laboratories, animals, machinery, etc., superior to that of the ordinary high schools.

By this time the association had come to consider agricultural education as forming a permanent part of our public-school system, and regular provision was made for the discussion of its various phases at succeeding meetings.

THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EDUCATION

The National Society for the Scientific Study of Education, composed of professors of education and others interested in the study of education, holds annual meetings in connection with the convention of the department of superintendence of the National Education Association. Since 1902 it has published yearbooks. One part of the yearbook for 1912 was devoted to papers on agricultural education in secondary schools, prepared under direction of D. J. Crosby, of the Office of Experiment Stations.

THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

The national committee on agricultural education, organized in 1904 by persons interested in the teaching of agriculture in the public schools, held meetings for several years in connection with the National Education Association, at which matters relating to secondary education were discussed. It was greatly interested in the effort to create a department of rural and agricultural education in the National Education Association. When that department was organized in 1908 this committee went out of existence.

SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES

The general history of the development of secondary instruction in agriculture in the agricultural colleges has already been described. (See particularly pp. 273 and 324.) This instruction has been organized in two general forms, (1) as a distinct school of agriculture within.

the college, or (2) as short courses of various lengths and for different purposes. The short courses, covering a year or more, are to a considerable extent of the same general character as the regular courses in the schools, but the schools as well as college departments also offer special courses covering shorter periods. In 1915-16 the Bureau of Education listed 24 land-grant institutions as maintaining schools or secondary courses of agriculture covering from one to four years. Schools were maintained in 11 States, as follows: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington. One-year, 2-year, industrial or vocational courses were maintained in 13 States: Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. The schools were

taught in large part by members of the regular agricultural college faculty and the college recitation rooms, lecture rooms, laboratories, and equipment are all used. There is little difference in the organization of these so-called "schools of agriculture" and in the "1-year," "2-year," 'industrial," and "vocational" courses in agriculture in other colleges (471).

66

In three States additional schools were maintained away from the college, though under its direction. The Colorado college had one at Fort Lewis, the Nebraska College one at Curtis, and the Minnesota college two, at Crookston and Morris. The school at Davis, under the University of California, served the double purpose of a secondary school and an institution giving college education in some agricultural subjects to members of classes who did most of their work at the College of Agriculture at Berkeley.

The status of the short courses in 1924 has been described in a previous chapter. (See p. 317.)

As the number of secondary courses in agriculture in special schools and the high schools increased and it became evident that such instruction would become a permanent part of our public-school system, the problem of college credit for such courses arose. In 1905 the council of the University of Missouri initiated the movement for giving credit for high-school agriculture on the entrance requirements for college. One unit was allowed for a year's work in agriculture in the high school.

About the same time the regents of the University of the State of New York, who provided uniform examinations for all the high schools of the State, decided to allow credits for nature study and agriculture provided the courses in these subjects showed educational values comparable with those of the other subjects recognized in their examinations. To meet this situation the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, at the request of the New York State Department of Education, prepared a typical syllabus for a high-school course in agriculture.

INSTRUCTION IN AGRICULTURE IN NORMAL SCHOOLS

Early in the twentieth century normal schools in a number of States began to teach agriculture. This was closely connected with the movement for the introduction of nature study and elementary agriculture into the rural schools, which will be described in a later

chapter. In Wisconsin the county training schools for teachers in Dunn and Marathon Counties were combined with the schools established in 1902 in which agriculture was taught. Soon thereafter county teacher-training schools in Michigan began the teaching of agriculture. About the same time the State Normal and Industrial College for Women, at Rockhill, S. C., began instruction in agriculture in connection with school-garden work.

In Missouri the State Normal School at Kirksville in 1900-1901 began to give a 1-year course in agriculture under the active leadership of the principal of the school, John R. Kirk, who was greatly interested in promoting agricultural education. It was the first attempt to give a systematic course in agriculture at a normal school in the United States. This resulted in 1905 in the publication of a manual and textbook of elementary agriculture entitled "Agriculture Through the Laboratory and School Garden," by Miss C. R. Jackson and Mrs. L. S. Dougherty, instructors in that school. This book shows that the course in agriculture there treated of soils, leguminous plants, propagation and improvement of plants, pruning, enemies of plants, rotation of crops, principles of feeding, milk and its care, and ornamentation of school and home grounds. Suggestions for laboratory exercises and field work and numerous references to the literature of the subject were prominent features of this book.

About the same time the normal school at Cape Girardeau began a 1-year course, which included one term each of soils and soil management, plant culture and horticultural practice, and home dairying and landscape gardening. A little later the normal school at Warrensburg undertook similar work. The courses in agriculture in these Missouri schoools were afterwards further developed and covered a longer period.

In

In Georgia the State normal schools at Athens and Milledgeville early began to develop courses in agriculture. In 1906-7 at Athens this subject was taught throughout the diploma course of three years and was one of the subjects in the short review course. the senior year students recited one double period a week on elementary agriculture, which included a review of previous work and a study of methods. The school had a 20-acre farm which furnished food for the students and was also utilized as a laboratory for the classes in agriculture. Students did practical work with different varieties of plants and fertilizers, budding, grafting, spraying, growing of plants in pots, etc. They studied rural-life problems, made detailed studies of a few staple crops in the South, and had some instruction regarding livestock and truck farming. At Milledgeville agriculture was a required subject in the freshman year and was followed in the junior and senior years by special courses on plants, animals, climate, weather, soils, etc.

In the Alabama State Normal School at Jacksonville agriculture was taught in 1906-7 in the first and second years and horticulture in the fourth year, with practical exercises in pruning, grafting, etc. The Colorado State Normal School at Greeley about this time required agriculture four hours a week throughout the eleventh grade of the high-school course and the ninth grade of the normalschool course and offered it as an elective in the twelfth grade of the

high-school course. It was taught by an associate professor of nature study, school gardening, and elementary agriculture.

In 1907 the Office of Experiment Stations reported that 64 of the 182 State normal schools in the United States were teaching agriculture (439).

Of these, 4 are in Alabama, 3 in California, 1 in Colorado, 2 in Connecticut, 2 in Georgia, 3 in Illinois, 1 in Iowa, 1 in Kansas, 1 in Louisiana, 3 in Maine, 3 in Michigan, 5 in Missouri, 1 in Montana, 3 in Nebraska, 1 in North Carolina, 2 in North Dakota, 1 in Ohio, 3 in Oklahoma, 1 in Oregon, 1 in South Carolina, 1 in South Dakota, 1 in Texas, 2 in Utah, 2 in Virginia, 3 in Washington, 6 in West Virginia, and 7 in Wisconsin.

The instruction in agriculture in 13 of these institutions is confined to the textbook, in 35 the textbook work is supplemented by laboratory exercises, school garden work, or other practicums, while in the remaining 16 schools the nature of the instruction is uncertain, though it is likely that fully half of these provide practice work.

Fully 70 per cent of the teachers of agriculture in normal schools were trained for other lines of work, and of the remaining 30 per cent nearly one-half are burdened with other science work.

In some of the normal schools agriculture was taught by teachers of agriculture, in others by teachers of science, and in the remaining schools by other teachers-principals, teachers of pedagogy, economics, and other subjects.

Oklahoma in the general law of May 20, 1908, for a system of agricultural education, provided $2,500 annually for a department of agricultural and industrial education in each of the State normal schools. The same year Texas appropriated $2,000 a year for two years to each of its three State normal schools for departments of agriculture, manual training, and domestic science, and also made provision for teachers' courses in elementary agriculture in the summer sessions at these schools.

In 1910 the Massachusetts State Normal School at North Adams, with the cooperation of the agricultural college, undertook special work with reference to rural schools, which was extended to cover three years of instruction on problems relating to farm crops, horticulture, poultry, and dairying.

In New York, after the passage of a law giving State aid to schools organizing departments of agriculture, home economics, and manual training, the State Normal and Training School at Cortland in 1911 offered 2-year and 1-year courses for men with instruction in agriculture and allied sciences, psychology, and education.

The normal schools, as well as the agricultural colleges, in a number of States offered short summer or winter courses in agricultural subjects, with special reference to the needs of teachers in service. A unique summer school of this kind, apart from the normal schools, was held at Cape May, N. J., August 6-31, 1908, under direction of H. O. Sampson, of the Office of Experiment Stations. The instruction was carried on by lectures, laboratory demonstrations, and field trips. Special effort was made to show how elementary instruction in agriculture could be effectively given without expensive apparatus and with the use of a school garden and of livestock on neighboring farms.

The number of normal schools in which agriculture was taught increased rapidly. In 1910 some instruction in agriculture was given in 156 State and county normal schools. This movement was thereafter affected by the increasing attention to teacher training in the

« PreviousContinue »