PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 1904.

By A. C. TRUE,

Director of the Office of Experiment Stations.

EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

The United States Department of Agriculture has continued its work of training agricultural experts, especially through a corps of scientific aids and student assistants, brought together from the agricultural and other colleges, and given special instruction in connection with the work of the different bureaus of the Department. In his annual report for 1904, the Secretary of Agriculture mentions some other ways in which the influence of the Department is being directly exerted in the field of education.

The Department is interested in the general introduction of meteorology into the courses of study provided by the universities and higher technical institutions of the country. The mode of teaching and the results obtained were made an important part of the work of the convention of Weather Bureau officials which was held at Peoria, Ill., in September, 1904. At an increasing number of educational institutions Weather Bureau officials, in addition to their regular duties and mainly outside of office hours, deliver courses of lectures on meteorology.

Carrying out the policy of the Department, the Weather Bureau has continued to cooperate with the leading universities throughout the country, and at the present time the relations existing are more intimate and the work done more important than at any time in the history of the service. Several universities and colleges have donated ground for the erection of buildings. Appreciation of the value of the work being done by the Weather Bureau has also been demonstrated by several universities in placing at the disposal of the Bureau, without cost, office quarters in their buildings for recently established stations. * *

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The Department is not an educational institution in the strict sense of the word, but it can do and is doing much to bring home to the people in all walks of life the importance and value of the farm and its productions. The Bureau of Plant Industry is making a special effort to encourage the study of plants in the public schools. The future welfare of this country depends upon its agricultural development, and it is important and vital that a knowledge of the opportunities in this field should early be brought to the attention of the child. Unfortunately, our system of elementary education is such as to leave no impression on the child's mind of the importance, value, and usefulness of farm life. The child is, in many ways, brought early into contact with facts which point to him the value of commercial life. He is, therefore, early inoculated with the belief that to reach the highest possibilities he must, if he is

on the farm, migrate to the city. It is to be regretted that farm life in the past has not always been conducive to the encouragement of young men to remain on the farm.

Very little effort has been made to overcome the general belief that there is always a great amount of drudgery connected with the farm and that the opportunities in this sort of occupation are narrow and limited. When we see the rapid advances that are being made in agriculture along all lines and note the need for bright young men in this field, the opportunities offered by the cultivation of the soil seem as great as in any other field. In order to bring these matters clearly home to the children, efforts are being made by the Department to encourage the growing of plants in connection with the public school work. The general distribution of seed is being handled in such a way that the encouragement of plant growing will be a feature of it. Wherever it has been practicable to influence school authorities, this has been done. Various members of the staff of the Bureau are constantly endeavoring, by publication of papers, lecturing, etc., to point out the advantages of rural life. The total number of publications issued by the Department in 1904 was 972. Of these 379 were new, comprising about 23,000 pages of matter. The number of copies of publications issued during the year aggregated 12,421,386. The Department Editor reports a constantly increasing demand for these publications by educational institutions, mainly for class work.

In order to make the Department publications more thoroughly available to persons using them, printed index cards for these publications are sent to a large number of libraries. During the past year a beginning has been made of preparing index cards for three important agricultural periodicals. The printing, distribution, and sale of these cards is carried on in cooperation with the Library of Congress.

EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT

STATIONS.

RELATION TO AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS.

As a branch of the Department of Agriculture this Office continues to lend its aid to the forward movement in agricultural education, partly through cooperation with the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, in connection with which the Director of this Office is chairman of the standing committee on methods of teaching agriculture.

The educational publications of this Office for 1904 included a namber of bulletins, circulars, and other documents, as follows: Bulletin 127, Instruction in Agronomy at Some Agricultural Colleges, by A. C. True and Dick J. Crosby; Bulletin 139, Special and Short Courses in Agricultural Colleges, by Dick J. Crosby; Circular 52, A Few Good Books and Bulletins on Nature Study, School Gardening, and Elementary Agriculture for Common Schools, by Dick J. Crosby; Circular 53, Report of the Committee on Rural Engineering of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges, by W. E.

Stone and others; Circular 55, Relation of the Natural Sciences to Agriculture in Four-year College Courses (this being a report of the committee on methods of teaching agriculture of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations); Document 706, The American System of Agricultural Education, by A. C. True and Dick J. Crosby, and Document 708, Organization and Work of Agricultural Experiment Stations in the United States, by Dick J. Crosby. As far as his other duties will permit, Mr. Crosby is especially engaged in the educational work of the Office, and is also giving particular attention to the extension work of the colleges in nature study, school gardening, and elementary agriculture. The calls for lectures on the various phases of the extension work before teachers and others interested in this work have been more numerous than ever, and while it has been possible for the Office to be represented at a number of State institutes and other meetings attended by a total of about 4,000 teachers, many invitations to appear before such public gatherings have of necessity been declined.

The Office is in correspondence with a large number of college and school officers and teachers in this country and abroad, and aids them in securing the publications of the Department for use in educational work.

RELATION TO FOREIGN INSTITUTIONS.

The Office is also following up the progress of agricultural educa tion in foreign countries. Among the new agricultural institutions recently established abroad the following are especially worthy of

mention:

The Imperial Agricultural College of India, endowed with $150,000 by Mr. Henry Phipps, of Pittsburg, Pa., will be located at Pusa, and will include a high-grade agricultural college and central research station, an experimental farm, and a cattle-breeding farm. The funds yielded by the endowment will be supplemented with appropriations from the imperial treasury.

Japan also has a new agricultural college, the third to be established in that country, which has been located at Morioka, under the directorship of a graduate of the Michigan Agricultural College. In France a colonial school has been established in connection with the university at Nancy for the purpose of giving instruction in forestry, agricultural economies, etc., to prepare students for positions in the French colonies.

The Province of Nova Scotia has established an agricultural college on its farm at Truro, where a $30,000 agricultural building has been erected. Courses of instruction at this college will be suited especially to the needs of farmers and farmers' sons. The institution will

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include departments of agriculture, horticulture, agricultural chemistry and physics, nature study, English, mathematics, farmers' institutes, and demonstration and research work. Short courses of about two weeks each will be held during the winter. In addition to the regular staff of instructors for the longer courses specialists will be engaged to assist in instruction, especially in short courses.

A royal school has been incorporated under the laws of the Province of Quebec for the purpose of establishing and carrying on agricultural schools and experimental farms. The school is to maintain two or more schools and experimental farms in the province, one to be located in the district of Montreal and one in the district of Quebec. Each school will contain accommodations for at least 50 pupils, and will give a three-year course, tuition and board being free of charge. The course will include all branches of agriculture, horticulture, arboriculture, dairying, slaughtering and curing of meats, carpentry, blacksmithing, and such other trades as may be useful to farmers. The school will establish experimental farms and "farms for tuition purposes," will clear and improve land and dispose of the same to its graduates and others, and will make advances to settlers to enable them to take up lands.

Sir William C. Macdonald, of Montreal, who has taken a deep interest in rural education and recently contributed funds for the establishment of concentration schools as an experiment, has decided to establish the Macdonald Foundation for Rural Education in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, 20 miles west of Montreal. A site of about 700 acres of first-class land, with fine exposure overlooking the Ottawa River, has been purchased. Prof. James W. Robertson, commissioner of agriculture and dairying of the Dominion government, will be at the head of the new institution.

It is proposed to have three departments, i. e., of research, of instruction, and of farms. The department of research will comprise research work in the sciences as related to agricultural and horticultural operations and to rural life generally. The department of instruction will provide long and short courses, and will furnish a headquarters for advanced education bearing upon rural life in Canada. In addition to carrying on work along lines somewhat similar to those followed at the best colleges of agriculture, there will be a division of household science, provision for special courses in nature study for teachers of rural schools, and a division of manual training.

The department of farms will provide for (1) a dairy farm, (2) a meat-producing farm, and (3) a "small cultures" farm. Each of these will be arranged, equipped, stocked, manned, and managed so as to illustrate the best known systems and methods of profitable agriculture. Within each farm there will be a series of small farms of from 1 to 5 acres. Apprentices will be received and, in addition