AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION-CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL, RECITATION AND ADMINISTRATION BUILDING ON LEFT, DORMITORY ON RIGHT.

An agricultural school of secondary grade has recently been opened at Rutherford, Napa County, Cal., under the auspices of the Youth's Directory of San Francisco, a Roman Catholic organization. For a number of years this organization has been sending boys who had graduated from the grammar grades of its city school to ranches in different parts of the State, but with unsatisfactory results. A ranch of 1,000 acres has therefore been purchased, on which vineyards and orchards are being planted, and stock raising and dairying are being established with the aid of the students sent from the city schools. A building with class-room laboratories and dormitories to accommodate 150 boys is now being erected.

The Mount Hermon School, near Northfield, Mass., founded by the late D. L. Moody, has established an agricultural department, and now offers courses of instruction in that subject. This step on the part of one of the largest secondary schools in the United States will be a matter of interest to those who are following the progress of secondary agricultural education. It is the more significant from the fact that the institution is not a technical school, and that this is the first attempt to establish an industrial course. It is another indication of the hold which this grade of agricultural education is taking.

The school has for some time had a farm of about 1,000 acres, which is carried on quite largely with student labor. In consideration of the low rate of tuition and board, pupils are expected to work about fifteen hours a week, and many of the boys have put in this time on the farm. As now operated it is said to yield a good profit. Much of the product finds a market at the boys' and girls' departments of the school and the Bible school, which together have an aggregate of about 900 students. There is at present a dairy of about 200 cows, and fruit orchards of considerable proportions, together with a cannery for putting up vegetables, especially tomatoes, peas, and corn.

There has, however, been no theoretical instruction in agriculture or horticulture. Mr. Harry Hayward, a graduate of the school and for several months past assistant chief of the Dairy Division of this Department, has now been called to the school as director of the agricultural department, and entered upon his duties August 1. The department will be organized into divisions for horticulture, dairying, and field work; and courses will be offered in different branches of agriculture, which it is understood will be mainly elective. In other words, only such of the 425 boys in the school as are especially interested in agriculture will be required to take the courses, although others may be required to work on the farm as heretofore.

It is planned to carry the farm on with student labor to even a greater extent than in the past, with practical foremen at the head of the several departments. As the school runs practically the year round, there being three terms of sixteen weeks each, this plan will be feasible.

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An effort will be made to make the instruction as practical as experience and the conditions surrounding the school will permit. A considerable number of the pupils come from the farming districts and expect to return to the farm, and the courses will be planned with special reference to their needs. With the equipment already at hand the opportunity would seem to be an unusual one for demonstrating the high value of agricultural courses in secondary schools.

In Massachusetts arrangements are being made to carry into effect the provisions in the will of Oliver Smith, which call for the estab lishment of an agricultural school. Mr. Smith was born at Hatfield, Mass., in 1776, and died in the same town in 1845, having amassed a fortune then valued at $370,000. By will he provided for a number of charitable enterprises which have since been wisely administered by a board of trustees, and in such a manner that the funds have grown until they reach a total of over one and one-third million dollars. The provisions of Mr. Smith's will relating to the agricultural school do not permit of its establishment before December 22, 1905, at which time the fund available for this purpose will be $300,000 or The founder directs that this school shall be established in the city of Northampton, Mass., and shall have in connection therewith "a pattern farm" and an experimental farm. Since the Massachusetts Agricultural College is located at Amherst, only 8 miles from Northampton, it is very probable that the new school will be of secondary grade and will be closely affiliated with the college.

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The first annual report of the Winona Agricultural and Technical Institute at Winona Lake, Ind., founded in 1902, shows that 92 boys were enrolled during its first session, of whom 57 came from the city, 21 from villages, and 14 from farms, and ranged in age from 14 to 22.

This school is founded upon the assumption that boys should begin early to assume a part of the responsibility for their education. To that end all students are required to work on an average fifteen hours per week, which partially pays their expenses. The labor of each boy is valued at 84 cents per hour.

Two hundred and twenty-five dollars will pay for board, room, heat, light, and tuition for the year-thirty-six weeks. This amount will be decreased at the rate of 83 cents for each hour of labor performed by the boy.

The course of study covers two years in a preparatory department corresponding to the seventh and eighth grades of the public schools, and four years in an academic department, in which the studies will be grouped in four courses entitled agriculture, trades, elementary technology, and academic. The course in agriculture will begin in the second year of the preparatory department and run through the four years of the academic department, provision being made in the last year for electives.

A substantial brick building, known as the Mount Memorial Building, has been erected for the school work, and there are also two

dormitories. The school is under the management of a board of 21 directors and a faculty of 13 members.

In Elyria, Ohio, a city of about 10,000 inhabitants, Mr. Lyman Carrier, a graduate of the Michigan Agricultural College, has recently been appointed teacher of sciences in the public high school, and an elective course has been arranged in which agriculture is to be taught in the third and fourth years. A class of 7 boys, all sons of farmers, elected this course the present school year. Instruction in animal husbandry, with special reference to dairy animals, is being given by lectures, laboratory exercises, visits to farms, etc. Later on soils and farm crops will be taken up. will be taken up. Of the 327 students in the Elyria High School this year, 103 are from the country. This work is being watched with great interest, since in Ohio and in many other States are high schools containing large numbers of country boys to whom such courses, if successful, will appeal.

THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

The movement for the introduction of the teaching of agricultural subjects into the primary schools made considerable progress during the past year. This matter is being widely discussed in assemblies of teachers and farmers and in the press. But better and more effective than this are the actual trials of such instruction in the schools, which are now going on in a number of places in different parts of the country. The State legislatures are being affected by this movement and already laws have been passed in a number of States by which instruction in agriculture in the public schools is permitted or encouraged. Such laws now exist in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

The State superintendents of public instruction are beginning to take an active interest in this subject. Definite provision is made for elementary courses in agriculture in the general courses of study outlined for the public schools in Illinois and Missouri. In Illinois this course has been prepared by Prof. Eugene Davenport, dean of the College of Agriculture of the University of Illinois, and includes outlines and suggestions for a series of simple observations and experiments on a variety of topics connected with the growth of cultivated plants and with animal husbandry, arranged according to the months of the school year and the vacation period.

In New Hampshire a similar course has been prepared by Prof. G. H. Whitcher, superintendent of schools for several towns, and recently president of the State Teachers' Association.

Provision has been made for the training of teachers in agricultural subjects in the three State normal schools of Missouri, in county train