are the soils and the plants, together with the birds, insects, weather, and whatever objects may be associated with it. The plants to be grown in the school garden are to be chosen with reference to soils and other local conditions. In many cases it is advisable to grow the common agricultural crops of the neighborhood, along with garden vegetables and flowers. The aim of the school garden is to put the child in touch with common realities, and by means of them to train the mind and the hands.

MANUAL TRAINING

In very many places the manual training can be provided for in the school garden itself. All the customary repairing and work about the buildings, as the painting, mending of locks, and the setting of glass should really be performed by the pupils of the school. It is always advisable, however, to have a special room set aside for the manual training. This will provide occupation in inclement weather and at seasons when the children cannot work in the school garden. A basement-room can often be utilized; or sometimes an attic or second story can be adapted to the purpose. In districts in which the school population has decreased there may be sufficient space on the main floor to allow a partition to be thrown across and a workroom provided. The best plan, however, is to accept the situation frankly and to provide a regular workroom as large as the ordinary recitation room.

Undoubtedly the early work in manual training should deal with some of the fundamental concepts of shape, proportion, and manual dexterity, but there is no reason why the practice-work should not soon extend to the making of simple apparatus and supplies for the school premises and also to the construction and repair of simple tools and utensils used in the home and on the farm. Many of the principles of physics can well be illustrated by means of agricultural implements and machines.

The school garden and the manual-training room should be complementary laboratories, one supplementing the other thruout the year. They should provide for a continuing, articulating series of activities on the part of all the pupils. These two sets of laboratories can provide training adapted to either boys or girls. In the case of girls the manual training can be given a distinct home-making phase, bringing into it many of the kinds of problems which in our more advanced schools we know under the name of domestic science and home economics. The point is that the schooling for both boys and girls should be related directly to the affairs of life.

SPECIAL OR SEPARATE SCHOOLS

While all schools must put themselves in position to relate themselves to their environment and to meet the essential needs of the people, it may nevertheless be necessary to establish special secondary schools of agriculture. Such schools are now established in Wisconsin, Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, New York, and probably elsewhere. These schools cannot meet the needs of all the people, unless they become so numerous as to duplicate the present school

systems; but they can become leaders in putting the subjects into pedagogic form, in arousing interest, and in demonstrating the possibilities of the new education; and even when the common public schools shall have put themselves into line with the new and vital education, these special schools will remain active centers of helpfulness to agricultural interests.

The recent movement in Georgia for the organization of separate industrial and agricultural schools has attracted much attention. By act of the last legislature all fees received from the inspection of fertilizers, oils, and other inspection incomes by the department of agriculture of the state over and above the expenses of such inspection, shall be used as a fund for the purpose of establishing and maintaining such schools, one to be organized in each of the eleven congressional districts of the state. The location of these schools is determined by the interest of the community in the enterprise. The government is authorized to receive donations of tracts of land in any community of not less than two-hundred acres, together with additional gifts in the way of buildings and money. It is most significant of the present interest in secondary agricultural education to know that these district schools were speedily located with large contributions of land, money, and other privileges. The total value of bids from the accepted localities was nearly $850,000, and the bids that could not be accepted amounted to about the same figure. The land in connection with these schools ranges from 240 to 300 acres, and the gifts in cash, electric light, water, and other privileges run from $30,000 upwards. These Georgia industrial and agricultural schools are to be branches of the State College of Agriculture which is a department of the University of Georgia. The general board of trustees of the university is authorized to exercise such supervision as in their judgment may be necessary to secure uniformity of plan and efficiency in the schools. Joseph S. Stewart, professor of secondary education in the University of Georgia, has issued a tentative course of study for the schools. It is expected that these schools will be put into operation as soon as suitable buildings and equipment can be provided.

A movement for agricultural high schools in the province of Ontario has taken a somewhat different form, and a brief record of it may be suggestive and interesting as expressing a kind of organization that does not obtain in the United States. It may be said in passing that distinct progress is being made in the other eastern Canadian provinces in the introduction of nature-study and similar work in the schools. This sketch of the work in Ontario (information furnished by J. W. Gibson) is inserted because of its bearing on the movement for the establishment of separate secondary schools for agriculture.

In the regulations respecting public schools, in Ontario, published in 1896, agriculture is classed as an optional subject for the highest grade of the public school. The only remark concerning the course is "The course in the authorized textbook." Very little attention was given to the subject in those days.

In "Amendments to Regulations for 1900" the following appears:

The public school course of study is amended so as to include agriculture among the

obligatory subjects in all rural schools for forms iv and v (grades 7, 8, and 9), for the latter form the textbooks are to be used by the pupils, but for the former the instruction is to be by conversation only.

In common with similar legislation and recommendation elsewhere in Canada and the United States, these early efforts produced results only here and there. A textbook written by C. C. James, the deputy minister of agriculture for the province of Ontario, was prescribed. With the aid of this book and other agencies, a few teachers were able to make the teaching of agriculture practical and interesting and they endeavored to supplement the indoor class instruction by experiment and direct observation. Their influence has had much effect.

It is now about ten years since nature-study began to be discussed by a few enthusiasts at teachers' conventions in Ontario. About five years ago it came more into prominence, received recognition as a pedagogical ideal in the normal schools, and thru them is now being widely introduced in the public schools of the province. Its introduction was almost simultaneous with that of manual training and both owe much to the philanthropy of Sir William Macdonald, which was made effective by the genius and keen insight into the educational needs of the country of Doctor James W. Robertson, then commissioner of agriculture for the dominion.

With the exception of one or two children's gardens, which were the result of individual enterprise, the first school gardens to be established in Ontario were arranged for in 1903 under the Macdonald Rural Schools Fund administered by Doctor Robertson and, during his absence, by H. H. Cowley, M. A., now inspector of continuation classes for the province. Five gardens were located at suitable points in the county of Carleton in connection with five public schools, and a large garden at the Macdonald Consolidated School at Guelph, Ontario. This marks the beginning of experimental agricultural education in connection with public schools in Ontario. These gardens have been maintained for a period of three years by the Macdonald fund. This fund also provided a traveling instructor who directed the work in person. During the time since the Macdonald school gardens began, a number of country schools have established experimental plots for flowers, grains, or vegetables, and the movement is slowly but surely winning its way wherever the people have been directly influenced by it. This year the school gardens received no financial support from the Macdonald fund and could not have been continued but for the moral support of the people and the necessary grants for expenses. made by the trustees. As it is, the gardens are in full swing at the present time, the teachers in charge are enthusiastic about the work and are sparing no amount of effort to make it a success and the pupils and parents are pleased that the gardens are likely to be continued. Speaking of the benefits of the school garden, the principal of the Carp public school writes as follows:

It is impossible to overestimate the value of school gardening on our boys and girls. Instead of being detrimental (as at first supposed) to their advancement in the other branches of learning, it has had the opposite effect. Since engaging in the work my boys

and girls have been first in all examinations, competing with children from other schools including city schools. The whole tone of the school has been improved morally, socially. and esthetically. Our boys and girls have now a reverence for life unknown before and it has awakened in them, as nothing else could do, a deeper interest in all life around them. It has helped to make school life a pleasure. Now the boy makes the excuse to get to school instead of the excuse to remain at home. It has aroused the interest of the entire community. The parents take a pride in "the work of our boys and girls in the school garden," and never fail to bring their visitors to see the work that is being done there. The pupils learn practical gardening and already their advice and assistance is often sought by parents and others interested in the cultivation of plants. Its influence is seen also in the homes of the pupils. Every home has its collection of houseplants inside and its plots and flower borders outside. Our school board has come to realize the value of this work and is anxious to have it continued.

In the Regulations of the education department of Ontario issued in 1904, there will be found a very comprehensive course in nature-study and in elementary agriculture. Provision is also made for establishing rural-school gardens "for the purpose of encouraging agriculture and horticulture and also for the purpose of increasing the attractiveness of rural schools." An initial grant of $100 and subsequent annual grants of $10 are given, payable on the report of the inspector, to every school board that provides one acre of land, in addition to the regular school grounds together with the necessary tools and implements for gardening. These regulations will no doubt be revised from time to time as changing circumstances may seem to warrant. As yet, but few school boards have availed themselves of the opportunity offered by the above regulations.

One of the difficulties in introducing this work in Ontario, as elsewhere, has been the great scarcity of teachers who have had any special training for the work. During the last three years a few teachers have taken special training in nature-study work at the Macdonald Institute which is affiliated with the Ontario Agricultural College, at Guelph. Each of the teachers who took the course received a bonus of $100 and traveling expenses, paid, part by the provincial government and part by the Macdonald fund. Altho the number of teachers taking this course has been comparatively small, yet much good. has resulted from it and more will result from it for years to come.

The provincial normal schools are now in the process of reorganization. There are three such schools and four new ones are to be added with a substantial increase in the staff of lecturers. It is the purpose to have the science master in each of these training schools qualify for the teaching of agriculture and nature-study. It is expected that instruction in school gardening will be given to all teachers in training. It is hoped that this will mark the beginning of a new era in public-school agriculture in the province.

At the last session of the legislature provision was made for establishing an agricultural department in each of six collegiates or high schools in the province. The grant of $1,000 to each of the six schools is to be supplemented by an equal contribution from the county or county's council in whose jurisdiction the agricultural school is situated. The school board is to provide the necessary

grounds, accommodation, and equipment. The subjects to be taught are such as are usually taught in agricultural colleges and will be so comprehensive that a two-years' course will count as one year toward graduation in the agricultural college at Guelph. It is the intention of the government that the teacher of agriculture will serve the community directly, as well as indirectly. He will have an office in the town in which the school is situated and will distribute literature to the farmers of the district. He will also, from time to time, visit different parts of the district and give lectures on agricultural subjects. If this experiment proves to be successful, it is hoped that in due time every county in the province will have at least one secondary school in which scientific agriculture will occupy a prominent place.

THE NATIONALIZING OF THE WORK

The desire to redirect the educational enterprises in agricultural regions has gained such headway in all parts of the Union that it is beginning to find an expression in Congress and in governmental bureaus. The Davis Bill, for example, introduced into the House of Representatives this past winter, is designed to provide an annual appropriation for industrial education in agricultural high schools and city schools, and also for branch agricultural experiment stations in the states. The bill provides that there shall be paid to each state and territory for the maintenance of instruction in agriculture and home economics in agricultural high schools of secondary grade and for instruction in mechanic arts and home economics in city high schools of secondary grade a sum equal to ten cents per capita of the population of the state or territory. The bill provides that the number of such agricultural high schools which should be entitled to receive the benefits of the act in any state or territory shall not exceed one school for ten counties. The bill also provides for an appropriation to each state and territory of $2,500 for each branch experiment station established by such state or territory. The state or territory is obligated in such case to expend annually for equipment and maintenance of such stations. a sum at least equal to $2,500.

The United States Department of Agriculture thru its office of experiment stations is interested in furthering the work of agricultural education in the public schools of the country. To that end it maintains an expert and issues publications.

The Department of the Interior through the bureau of education is also actively interested in agricultural education as a phase of our industrial development and is proposing to issue bulletins that have specific bearing on some of the practical problems at issue.

The subject of agricultural and other industrial training in schools is receiving increased attention from teachers' conventions and also from educational conferences of all kinds. It was noticeable that more attention was given to industrial training in rural schools at the last Southern Education Conference than to any other single phase of education. These facts are concrete expressions of the trend of public opinion; this trend is an expression