used to better advantage, they will not be long in acquiring new methods. Much can be taught at home but it is unnecessary to suggest here why industrial and technical occupations, including sewing, cooking, and allied subjects cannot be fully or adequately thus taught. Such economic and sociological questions are involved as seem to be a barrier to home teaching altho the value of home instruction is unquestioned. Work for girls should include not only sewing and cooking in their narrow aspects, but a study of the chemistry of foods, simple analyses, marketing in its economic aspects, heat, light, ventilation, house sanitation, plumbing and disinfectants; proper methods of sweeping, dusting, laundry, and care of the home; hygiene, nursing, and emergency aid; a knowledge of accounts and business forms; domestic architecture and planning of the house and grounds; gardening and tree and floral culture where possible, and much more that in the Swiss schools is included under the term "female handwork," and which is both practical and cultural. If technical education is to develop and be a general factor in the educational life of the country, such education must justify itself and stand out as being eminently superior. There must be no question as to the seriousness, the intensity, the real worth of such work. In institutions offering education of a technical character, the subjects must be pre-eminently of an educational and practical value and the curriculum, the methods, the teachers, the work accomplished must be such as to command the attention of those desiring such education; the institution must be in every way so attractive that boys and girls who might otherwise enter the field of practical life at an early age, will be drawn to and induced to spend here three or four of the best years of their lives, not in learning about living or doing merely, but in living and doing; not swept thru the channels of reformation and change, but directed over a self-constructed highway of formation and growth. A distinct effort must be made to bring together the various school subjects so as to form a more perfect union and an organized whole. Harmony must exist between the various studies; the several lines must so work together as to avoid needless duplication, while at the same time principles learned in one subject shall find application elsewhere. In so doing much time can be saved that is now entirely wasted. The necessity for this change is particularly noticeable at this time owing to the serious overcrowded condition of the curriculum. As to organization, the school with its many interests and activities should be a unit. While tending toward the individual development of each student, one central, all-embracing policy must animate thruout, and all work must be subordinate to and flow in to enrich this central policy. No curriculum alone, however good it may be, will suffice to bring desired results. There must be a definite, direct, clean-cut motive at the center. The policy then must be understood by all and the school's organization such as to permit the carrying out of such policy. Just what lines of technical training should be offered in a secondary school is a question of considerable importance. Tradition and practice have marked out a fairly well-defined road in shop practice for boys; in general, one year of wood construction, one of iron, and two of pattern- and machine-work. For those students who are not to put their knowledge of machinery to immediate account, this second year of machine-shop may be omitted, and a general course be pursued. This might be an applied-art course, demanding a knowledge of constructive design, and of wood and iron processes, and would comprehend work in any media including copper, brass, enameling, glass, leather, etc. Unless a student was to enter a technical college later where an extended knowledge of machine construction would be essential, such a general course would prove of great value. In the technical high school, too, the student may be allowed to specialize to the extent of taking two years of work in a given shop-turning in wood, cabinet-making, pattern-making, forging, and the like. Time will permit of no adequate discussion of the work of the technical college. One thing is certain. While the opportunities and field for such institutions is becoming vastly greater and broader and the need of technically trained men more and more apparent, the fact is also clear that the training in such schools is too narrow and restricted. This is but the natural revolt against the old scholasticism. From a college training in letters merely, the tendency has been too strongly marked in the opposite direction, and pure science and technique in the abstract has characterized the technical courses. Then, too, just as the general high school should offer technical training to all who seek entrance, so should the colleges everywhere offer certain technological courses to balance and complete their curricula. That the training given in the technical college be not over-narrow and restricted, to the sciences, mathematics, drawing, and shopwork must be added such of the humanities as experience may determine essential. The graduate of an engineering college or of a school of technology frequently finds himself in possession of sufficient facts connected with his profession, but with a knowledge of the language he uses so inadequate as to seriously handicap him in pursuing his vocation. The business side of his education he also finds, when too late, has been sadly neglected. To adequately express oneself and to perfectly understand all common business forms, such as papers of conveyance, deeds, bills of lading, etc., are matters, to be ignorant of which is absolutely inexcusable. Details of common law, training in questions of national and political economy and of general history are fundamentally essential. A study of the technical college courses will show that everywhere, and especially in Germany, a strong reaction is taking place, and the feeling is growing, that a well-trained engineer must be a man broad in his sympathies and possessing a knowledge of people and things that shall give him place anywhere and always. The Emperor William, on the occasion of the Charlottenburg celebration, used these words to indicate what was to his mind the connection between the technical high school and the technical college: In the relation of the technical high schools to the other highest educational establishments, there is no opposition of interests, and no other competition than this, that each of them and every member of them for his own part, should do full justice to the claims of life and science, mindful of the words of Goethe: "Neither be like the other, but each be like to the highest! How is this to be done? Let each be complete in itself." We close where we began. In the technical college as elsewhere the ultimate purpose of the training offered is for service. But the service rendered must be given, not with the hope of material gain only or of selfish reward. Recent events in our country have shown us most clearly a great lack in our present social attitude. We have men-trained specialists, professional, technical, and commercial, and we need more of them, but if we are to meet, successfully the present state of social unrest and solve the economic and political problems that confront us, they must be men of broad social vision, men who realize the needs of society and who are willing to assume to the full their individual and collective responsibilities. The technical college must do its part by broadening its purely technical character in the lines which I have attempted to indicate. But the proper results in technical education cannot be attained without work, and there will be much opposition. We must be leaders as well as learners and followers. We must be open-minded always, definite in our purposes, and willing to stand alone if in the right. What Burke says of Parliament finds its application with us in America, whether it be in politics, in the religious world, or in education: Their one proper concern is the interest of the whole body politic, and the true democratic representative is not the cringing, fawning tool of the caucus or the mob, but he who, rising to the full stature of political manhood, does not take orders but offers guidance. CONFERENCE OF NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION SECRETARY'S MINUTES WEDNESDAY, 2:30 P. M., JULY 10, 1907 The conference under the direction of the National Committee on Agricultural Education met Wednesday afternoon, July 10, in the State Normal School, Los Angeles. E. C. Bishop, deputy state superintendent of Nebraska, was chosen leader and E. E. Balcomb of Southwestern Normal School, Weatherford, Okla., secretary. "The Work of the National Government in Extending Agricultural Education through the Public Schools" was the subject of an address by Dick J. Crosby, expert in agricultural education, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. A paper on "What Has Been Done and Is Being Done by Normal Schools and Agricultural Schools for Popular Education in Agriculture" was read by E. E. Balcomb, department of agriculture, State Normal School, Weatherford, Okla. "The Work in Agriculture as Conducted by the State and County Organizations of Young People in Club Contests" was considered in an address by E. C. Bishop, deputy state superintendent of public instruction, Lincoln, Neb. A discussion followed. By reference to the minutes of a meeting of the Board of Directors held July 8, 1907 (see pp. 44, 45), it will be seen that in answer to a petition, the establishment of a Department of Rural and Agricultural Education was authorized. It is understood that the petitioners will organize at a later date and will present a program at the next annual convention. E. E. BALCOMB, Secretary. THE WORK OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EXTEND- DICK J. CROSBY, EXPERT IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, UNITED STATES OFFICE The work of the national government in aid of agricultural education may be outlined under two main heads: (1) The giving of funds to the different states and territories to support and encourage agricultural education and research; (2) The giving of expert assistance to educators, educational institutions, and the officials of education, by the different executive departments of the government. FINANCIAL AID FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT The government is now giving annually to the states and territories more than $2,000,000 for the support of institutions in which agricultural education and research are the leading features, and legislation recently enacted provides for the gradual increase of this amount until a total of $3,840,000 is reached. Incidentally this recent legislation also provides for the use of a part of the |
