institutes. Under these acts 129 schools had agricultural courses in 1915-16.

In Maine a law enacted in 1909 provided that any incorporated academy maintaining a course in manual training, domestic science, or agriculture approved by the State superintendent of schools might receive annually from the State a sum equal to that expended for such instruction, up to $250 for each course. This act was amended in 1911 to make it apply to high schools as well as academies and to allow reimbursement for two-thirds of the expenditures for such instruction up to $500 annually.

Maryland in 1910 provided State aid for agriculture, home economics, manual training, and business courses in two classes of high schools. Schools with at least 80 high-school pupils and a 4-year course would receive $400 toward the salary of each of two special teachers, and schools with at least 35 high-school pupils and a 3-year course would receive $400 toward the salary of one special teacher. Nine high schools giving instruction in agriculture received State aid in 1911.

The New York education law of 1909 as amended in 1910 provided that schools of agriculture, mechanic arts, and home making might be established in cities or in union free school districts (318). These schools were for "pupils who have completed the elementary school course, or have attained the age of 14, or who have met such other requirements as the local school authorities may have prescribed." The commissioner of education was authorized to grant $500 annually to such schools maintained for 38 weeks, employing one full-time teacher, having an enrollment of at least 25 pupils, and maintaining a course approved by him, and $200 for each additional teacher similarly employed, or pro rata amounts to schools having a shorter term. This act was afterwards amended to allow two-thirds of the salary of the special teachers to be paid by the State. The State education department committed the administration of this law to its division of trades schools, and it was ruled that departments or courses as well as separate schools might be given State aid under this law. F. W. Howe, formerly connected with the Office of Experiment Stations, was appointed supervisor of agricultural education.

In 1913 the law was amended to permit the organization of parttime, continuation, or evening vocational schools, to reduce the necessary school year to 36 weeks and the enrollment to 15 pupils, to permit the employment of vocational teachers for 12 months, and to increase the maximum State allowance to each teacher to $1,000 a year. That year the State supervision was committed to a division of vocational schools, in which L. S. Hawkins was the specialist in agricultural education (318). Suggested 4-year courses in agriculture for intermediate and high schools were outlined, and "there must be provision for two weekly laboratory exercises of 90 minutes each in each class taught by the agriculture teacher." A definite plan for home-project work was published, and it was announced that no credit is to be given for any subject in agriculture until a satisfactory project for that year has been carried out by the pupil seeking such credit." Additional regents' credit might be given for a project of sufficient importance when this is "summed up in a carefully written thesis which presents a complete discussion of the problem or experiment undertaken, the scientific facts and principles involved,

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and the practical results accomplished." When the teacher was employed during the summer, part of his work was to be the supervision of home projects of pupils or of boys or young men not in school. In 1915-16 there were 68 State-aided vocational agricultural departments in public high schools in New York.

Massachusetts in 1911 made it possible for a vocational agricultural school to be established in any existing high school by a town or group of towns. Such school approved by the State board of education would receive two-thirds of the salary of the teacher of agriculture. In 1915-16 there were 14 schools receiving State aid for instruction in agriculture.

In North Dakota in 1911 a law was passed providing that any high, graded, or consolidated school having an agricultural department might receive State aid to the extent of $2,500, provided, however, that the number of schools the first year be limited to five and that not more than five were to be added each two years. To receive State aid the school must employ trained instructors in agriculture, manual training, and domestic science and have within 1 mile of the school building not less than 10 acres of land for a school garden and field demonstrations.

In Pennsylvania the new school code of 1911 provided that agriculture shall be taught in township high schools and that a portion of the State school fund may be used to promote education in conservation, forestry, and agricultural and industrial pursuits." L. H. Dennis was appointed expert assistant in agricultural education in the State department of education to supervise the introduction of agriculture into the township high schools. Under a State act of May 1, 1913, two-thirds of the amount paid for instruction in agriculture might be received by a high school from State funds. In 1915-16 there were 18 schools receiving State aid for teaching agriculture.

In Utah in 1911 the State board of education provided that every accredited high school must teach agriculture in order to participate in the maintenance fund provided for such schools. In 1915-16 there were 14 high schools in Utah in which agriculture was taught.

In Wisconsin a State law of 1911 provided for State aid of $250 for each department of manual training, domestic science, or agriculture established in connection with any free high school. In 1915-16 agriculture was taught in 79 high schools in Wisconsin.

The Michigan Agricultural College, which established a department of agricultural education in 1908, with W. H. French, formerly deputy superintendent of public instruction, in charge, actively promoted the teaching of agriculture in the high schools in the State. As a result such instruction was soon offered in a number of schools which were able to obtain qualified teachers. In 1912 a State commission on industrial and agricultural education recommended the introduction of agriculture into the high schools, with State supervision and financial aid. This was not done, but in 1915-16 there were 55 high schools teaching agriculture under the supervision of the State agricultural college.

AGRICULTURE IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS WITHOUT STATE AID

About the beginning of the twentieth century local high schools began to introduce instruction in agriculture, and by 1915 the number

of such schools was large. Brief accounts of a few of these schools are given here to illustrate early types of agricultural work in the high schools which did not receive State aid.

In 1902 the city of Elyria, Ohio, appointed Lyman Carrier, a graduate of the Michigan Agricultural College, as teacher of sciences in the public high school and arranged an elective course with agriculture in the third and fourth years.

The high school at Waterford, Pa., which was established in 1800 and had a stone building erected in 1822, organized an agricultural course in 1905 in addition to those in language and science (439). The school was fortunate in getting as teacher of agriculture H. Ó. Sampson, a graduate of the Iowa Agricultural College, who was able to arouse much interest among the students and the neighboring farmers. The course was planned to cover five hours a week for four years. The first year was devoted to a study of the life and uses of plants, the second year to field, orchard, and garden crops, the third year to animal husbandry, dairying, and soil physics, and the fourth year to the chemistry of soils, plants, and animals. Instruction was given through textbooks and lectures (some of which were before the whole school), with agricultural books, bulletins, and papers for reference. Much was made of laboratory work and outdoor practicums. The pupils made much of their own apparatus. The school had no land or livestock but used neighboring farms for observation and stock judging. Farmers often brought animals to the vicinity of the schoolhouse to be studied by the agricultural pupils. Mr. Sampson soon left this school to take up work in the Bureau of Soils at Washington, but his successor continued the course with marked success, and was able to report in 1907 that 95 per cent of the boys at the school were in that course. A Babcock tester had been added to the laboratory equipment and was used by the students for testing milk sent in by their parents and others. Through the good relations of the teacher with the students and their parents the school was "sharing with church and grange in providing a meeting place for town and country on a ground of common interest."

About this time the school board of Cecil County, Md., at the request of people in the northern part of that county decided to establish a high school at Calvert and to give the course of study an agricultural trend (439). The board applied to the Maryland Agricultural College and the United States Department of Agriculture for aid in organizing the school. (Mr. Sampson was furloughed to be its principal and teacher of agriculture.) The school was opened November 5, 1906, in a rented 2-room building, with about 9 acres of land adjacent to it. A 4-year course was prepared with the cooperation of the county board and the Office of Experiment Stations. It included English, Latin, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, history, drawing, farm bookkeeping, and farm surveying, together with four years of agriculture combined with physical geography and the elements of physics, chemistry, and botany. There were also laboratory and field exercises. The principal was very active in bringing the school to the attention of the community. The pupils participated in educational meetings, contributed articles to the county papers, took part in a farmers' institute and corn-judging contest, helped to renovate and spray an old orchard, and made observation trips to farms. The principal visited the elementary schools within

a radius of 5 miles from Calvert and interested the teachers and pupils in nature study and elementary agriculture. In the spring months he conducted a night school for the boys who had to leave. the day school to assist in farm work.

The Farragut School at Concord, Tenn., was reorganized about 1907 to make it serve the community more fully. It had then a new brick building and 12 acres of land about 111⁄2 miles from a small village. This housed both elementary and high-school departments, with a laboratory and home economics and manual training rooms. Six acres were used for demonstrations and for growing food for livestock. Three courses, Latin, English, and agriculture, manual training, and home economics, were offered. In the latter, besides the sciences and academic subjects common in high-school courses, instruction was given in agriculture, manual training, or home economics during the first two years, and in the third and fourth years the student might continue the study of agriculture or take more physics and chemistry. Evening meetings for social and educational purposes held at the school brought it into closer touch with the people of the community.

The high school at Fairfield, Nebr., in 1911 made visits to farms adjacent to the town a prominent feature of its agricultural instruction. The farmer visited, if he were in the livestock business, talked to the class on the history and merits of his favorite breed. Before going to the farm the students got all available information on this subject from textbooks and teachers. The practical talk and demonstration closed the instruction on this matter. A local expert judge of cattle was employed to accompany the class to the farm.

The high school at Coin, Iowa, offered four years of agriculture as an elective in 1910 (439). Agriculture was taught by the school superintendent, who had arranged the nature study in the grades so as to make a good preparation for agriculture in the high school. The instruction covered soils, crops, and silos in the first year; plant propagation, fruit growing, drainage, fertilizers, and maintenance of soil fertility in the second year; animal husbandry and dairying in the third year; farm buildings, sanitation, water supply, ornamentation of home surroundings, farm mechanics and machinery, roads, bee keeping, farm forestry, and the elements of farm accounting, marketing, and farm economics in the fourth year.

The consolidated school in Magnolia Township, Putnam County, Ill., had a high-school department, in which agriculture, manual training, and home economics occupied a prominent place in 1908. This school was located out in the country, 2 miles from the small village of McNabb and was housed in a $12,000 brick building on a tract of 24 acres of timber pasture donated by John Swaney, a farmer in moderate circumstances. An abandoned schoolhouse nearby was fitted up for a teachers' home. In the seventh and eighth grades three 20-minute periods a week were given to elementary agriculture, and in the eighth grade there was also bench work. The high-school course contained agriculture during the four years as an elective instead of Latin or home economics, together with physiology, zoology (including entomology), botany, chemistry, physics, and the academic subjects usually found in a standard course. In agriculture, agronomy and horticulture were taught in the first year, swine husbandry in the second year, soil physics and feeding and judging livestock in the

third year, and soil fertility as related to systems of farming in the fourth year. Besides the classroom instruction there were laboratory, shop, and field exercises and observation trips to a near-by branch experiment station and to farms. The principal taught agriculture, manual training, science, and some mathematics.

The Agricultural High School of Baltimore County at Sparks Station, Md., was opened in 1909, with B. H. Crocheron, a graduate of Cornell University, as principal and teacher of agriculture (439). This school was formed by the consolidation of four schools and was supported by county funds and local contributions. The pupils came by train, by private conveyance, or in school wagons. The first year there were 50 pupils in the high school and considerably more in the grades. The high-school course included the usual academic subjects, except foreign languages, which were replaced by agriculture, home economics, and manual training. The school had 7 acres of land and a new granite building containing five classrooms, three laboratories, and a farm-machinery room. During the summer the high-school boys were required to conduct what are now called home projects, under direction of the principal. The school tested seeds and milk for farmers.

The initial success of the school was very largely due to the interest aroused in the county by the preliminary activities of Mr. Crocheron. Before the opening of the school he moved about in the county getting acquainted with the people, attending their agricultural meetings, teachers' institutes, etc. The men's agricultural club and the women's home-interest club were made responsible for the public meeting when the school building was dedicated. After school opened a series of monthly meetings for rural teachers were held there, at which lessons in school methods, administration, and agriculture were given. The principal also contributed lessons in elementary agriculture to a local publication, which was sent free by the school authorities to every teacher in the county.

For adult farmers a course of 10 weekly lectures was given, with an average attendance of 125 men and women. At the end of the series of lectures a 2-day corn congress was held, with exhibits, demonstrations, and addresses on corn growing and cooking. Twenty rural schools held preliminary corn shows and sent their best exhibits to the congress.

For the farmers' wives monthly meetings were held on Saturday afternoons, the school wagons being used to transport them. There was an average attendance of 85 women, divided into four groups which studied home economics, carpentry, home crafts, or modern literature. A literary society was organized for young people not in school, with spelling bees, debates, etc.

The number of high schools in which some agriculture was taught increased very rapidly after about 1905. Instruction in agriculture or in its relations to botany, chemistry, or zoology was given in about 400 high schools in 1900 and in about 2,000 schools in 1912. This latter number had doubled by 1915.

This work was usually done by a single teacher in each school. Comparatively few of these teachers were well trained in agriculture. Most of them had been employed primarily to teach science or some other subject. A number of textbooks on agricultural subjects, pre