ing of a box, the making of pieces of furniture such as tables, tabourettes, chairs, stools, benches, cupboards, cabinets, boxes, book cases-this is the type of work that should have first place, and prescribed courses of study should be brought forward only in emergency cases.

But where can competent teachers be found? One school board makes the bold statement that the less the man knows of the subject the better teacher he is, for under such conditions the boys do their own work. The expert is too prone to rob the boy of the benefits he should receive, by himself performing the difficult details, the excuse for so doing being that more ground is thus covered and a better showing made. Whether or not the argument of this school board is germane, in manual training as elsewhere in education, common-sense is the first essential. If the country school is taught by a woman, then is the problem of the instruction of boys complicated, for it is neither natural nor desirable that boys in seventh or eighth grades and above be taught the industrial processes at the hands of a woman.

The same objections advanced against the teaching of industrial training to boys in rural schools is likewise made as to the work suitable for girls. Many mothers have small favor for domestic economy in the school. This, they claim, can be learned at home. Here again popular sentiment must be aroused. While the processes must proceed along educational lines, the industrial spirit or commercial handling must be present. If the mothers are to be educated to the appreciation of certain economic and scientific points of view it must be by beginning with processes they understand, with methods they can appreciate, and with equipment and utensils with which they are familiar. If it be demonstrated to them that the tools they possess can be 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 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, although 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 phases, 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 and much more that in the Swiss schools is included under the term "female handwork," and which is both practical and cultural.

But work for girls must be considered from another than the sentimental point of view. The argument has been that since boys have manual training, we must consequently provide some work with which the girls may "occupy their time" during such periods. This argument is no argument at all.

The time has passed when any thinking man or woman will advocate the same kind or type of work for girls and boys alike. In the early years all may engage in like occupations, but differentiation should not be long delayed, and processes suitable to the aptitudes, desires, and actual needs of girls should be offered and required. In the ungraded rural schools the problem is a difficult one, as neither time, equipment, nor space may permit a great variety of work for girls of various ages and abilities.

Let me give an illustration of what can be done. A teacher in a country locality persuaded his board to purchase benches and tools for his older boys, and so much money was spent that I characterized the policy as extravagant. This teacher had only a pickup knowledge of tool handling but understood boys, and as the older boys were leaving the school, he made his appeal on the basis of keeping them in school for a longer period. Note extracts from a recent letter. "I thought," he says, "you would be interested in the turn affairs have taken in our work here. I thought our equipment-tools, benches,

etc.-quite good enough for any one. Several of the boys decided they wanted better benches-they wanted to own the benches they worked on and the tools they worked with. Accordingly two have completed benches of their own and will soon buy tools. Two others are drawing plans for benches and will proceed at once to make them. They are putting on rapid-acting vises and tail screws. I became alarmed, fearing all were intending to turn themselves wholly to woodworking. But one boy assured me that he regarded it merely as 'an intelligent form of recreation,' and while he expects to study law says he will always have his bench and tools at home.

"One matter I wish to have you take up for consideration. I cannot teach sewing or anything of that kind. I am very anxious to formulate a course in manual training that is adapted to girls. I can use some work in wood carving, free hand and mechanical drawing, but I think there might be something in the way of constructive work. I have wondered whether there might not be a course where the materials used would be paper, cardboard, etc., combined with fabrics and trimmings. I think perhaps our present line of work a little heavy for the average girl, but feel that some work where the student actually creates something that answers a need, ministers to a want, or serves a useful purpose, is almost a necessity in the education of a child.

"I have been pleased if not flattered recently to note that several leading men in the East are advocating the very plan I am following, and poking fun at the idea of making models of nothing and joints just for the sake of joints. If you know of a course for the purpose I have suggested I shall be greatly obliged for information concerning it. I would be willing to go anywhere in the United States during the next summer vacation to equip myself for work of that kind."

This is the spirit that will win in this matter of industrial education. But in the rural school it must be considered rationally. It must not be deadened by being handled by a non-appreciative teacher who knows nothing of its content; it must not be in the hands of an enthusiast who rushes away to make tradesmen or seamstresses or professional cooks; it must be placed on a true commercial basis and considered from the standpoint of the practices of the craftsman. It must always be considered in the light of relative values and dictated in the terms of common sense.

THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL AND THE NEW AGRICULTURE

O. J. KERN, SUPERINTENDENT OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY SCHOOLS, ROCKFORD, ILL. The time limitation of fifteen minutes for papers on the various phases of the betterment of the country school will not permit of any extended treatment. The countryschool problem is the most important educational problem of the hour. The welfare of this most distinctively American institution affects more people, directly and indirectly, than the educational systems of the towns and cities. Certain it is that any one of the topics to be considered this afternoon by the various leaders could consume the entire afternoon with profit and interest. The subject then would not be exhausted.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE

There is a new agriculture. The higher institutions of learning for the farmer, viz.: the colleges of agriculture and the experiment stations, are developing a new science, the science of farming. Old methods must give way to new. The exhausted soil must be built up anew, if we are to have a permanent system of agriculture. The fertility of the best classes of soils must be maintained. So the soil survey maps with bulletins on rotation of crops; the chemistry and physics of soils; the breeding of plants; care of animals; farm mechanics and home economics, all emphasize the fact that we have a new agriculture and further emphasize the fact that the important work of the higher institutions of learning for the farmer must be made available for the great mass of country children who

will remain on the farm and will never go to the state college of agriculture or even to the nearby city high school. It is estimated that in many states 85 per cent. of the children now in the one-room country schools never pass beyond the boundaries of the home district, so far as school training is concerned. Surely here is an educational problem worthy of most careful consideration.

THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL

The union of several small country schools with a country high school with a course of study flavored with country life and interests seems to me to be the only far-reaching solution of the problem of agricultural education to fit the mass of people to meet the conditions of the new scientific age of agriculture. This does not mean that any of the evils of a city graded system, if there be any evils, shall be transplanted to the fields. Certain it is that the country child is entitled to as good an educational opportunity as is now enjoyed by the most favored city child attending the American public school. Certain it is, also, that the country people can have better schools by spending more money for education and spending it in a better way. There seems to be no other way.

A NEW EDUCATIONAL IDEAL

The hardest of all educational problems is to reach the average farmer and to lead him to do things to better the country school. The fact also that he is conservative and opposed to change does not remove the necessity for improvement. The fact that he does not believe in agricultural education does not render useless the work of the agricultural college and experiment station. The fact that on stated occasions he manifests great concern for the country schoolhouse, merely sentimental ofttimes, does not change the conditions there; does not plant a tree; paint a board; put a book into the school; increase the attendance; or add a dollar to the salary of a well-trained teacher for the dozen pupils enrolled in the school for six months of the year. How to create a new educational ideal among the farmers is not the question under discussion. I yield to no one in my belief in the country school and give full credit to most excellent work being done in many schools. A general campaign of education needs to be carried on for several years to remove misunderstanding and prejudice with reference to the consolidation of country schools. The farmer will have to be met on his own ground.

SPIRITUALIZATION OF AGRICULTURE

This is the first distinct service the consolidated school will do for agriculture. The right kind of training in this school with its high-school course will furnish a new type of farmer. He will have a wider outlook. He will be in sympathy with all that is richest and best in country life. Civic improvement will appeal to him. The study of nature in his high-school course will increase his respect for flowers, trees, etc., and lead to the adornment of country home and roadside. His social interests will be enlarged. The association with most of the boys of a township while in school cannot fail to make men more sympathetic and social. The organizations of boys while in school will naturally lead to the organization of men out of school. The isolation of the farm home will pass away. The influences of art, music, literature, and the science of agriculture will mitigate the drudgery of farming. "The man behind the plow" or "the man behind the cow" becomes a new man. And with this new man comes a new spirit to his work.

VITALIZATION OF THE COURSE OF STUDY

The consolidated school will make possible a course of study suited to the needs of country life. There will come a study of the environment of the child and in this environment will be found educational material of the highest practical utility and cultural value as well. Dean Bailey, of Cornell, has said "there is as much culture in the study of beet roots as in the study of Greek roots." The course of study for the country child will not be patterned after that of the city school, where different conditions obtain. The

possibility of secondary education out in the fields makes the high school accessible to all the children. The high-school course of study will include soil physics, agricultural chemistry, agricultural botany, farm mechanics, and home economics. The child will be put in touch with life. As Superintendent N. D. Gilbert, of the Northern Illinois Normal School, says, "From all that has been said, it is evident that social efficiency demands that the course of study in all its detailed outworking should be made a "local issue;" that it should utilize the local community life—its occupations, resources, organization, traditions, customs. The school should be consciously in touch with all. Today the serious charge against it is its isolation as a realm of child life and its failure to articulate closely and smoothly with the home, the neighborhood, and the community at large. Only so can the realities of the larger life come to the child: only so can the instruction of the school take on the reality needed to make it vigorously and practically effective."

EFFICIENCY OF THE TEACHING FORCE

Lastly for the purposes of this discussion the consolidated school will increase the efficiency of the teaching done. This kind of a school will demand and secure better trained teachers who will be able to vitalize the course of study. There will be a longer school year, with better salaries, with longer tenure of office on the part of the teaching force. The superior character of the instruction will bring the country school and the country home closer together to meet the conditions of a new country life. Such trained teachers will make the consolidated school the connecting link between the farm and the college of agriculture. How to make the country people realize this is another question.

DISCUSSION

E. E. BALCOMB, Department of Agriculture, State Normal School, Weatherford, Okla. I fully agree with all that Superintendent Kern has said. We need to be impressed with this statement that the country-school system affects more people directly and indirectly than the educational systems of towns and cities. The course of study is less adapted to the needs of these children than to city children. Conditions are such that they have the poorest instruction. Making agriculture the basic study and correlating other subjects with it will remedy the one evil. The consolidated school will remedy the other by giving better buildings, equipment, and instruction.

In the brief period for this discussion I can say nothing of the consolidated school except that I most heartily endorse the movement. The point Superintendent Kern makes concerning the advantages that the consolidation of schools will give in encouraging organization among farmers learned from organized school associations is excellent.

We need more time for the discussion of this subject. What opposition there is to this movement comes from misunderstandings of what is expected in agricultural instruction.

Mr. Bishop is preparing a most excellent program for the department of agricultural education at the N. E. A. and I hope that we may have a full meeting.

Mr. Kern speaks of the difficulty of interesting the farmers themselves. He has already done much to interest the farmer. Superintendent McBrien and Mr. Bishop of Nebraska are reaching them successfully through the boys' and girls' clubs. In Oklahoma we are carrying on a campaign in connection with farmers' institutes. This work could be made more effective by interesting the leaders of the farmers' unions, the granges, etc. We ought to have these leaders in conference at our national and state associations, and should secure their co-operation in reaching the farmers.

As Superintendent Kern says, "what we need is a general campaign of educational needs to be carried on for several years." We should need to have a national organization of educators and farmer leaders to forward this movement. They should issue a bulletin. This organization should carry on experiments to prove the value of this work. What

we need is reliable data gathered from all over the United States, as far as possible, under all conditions, as to whether the present or any suggested course of study and methods of teaching are the best possible for the development of the American citizen.

What would be the procedure in the laboratory if there were a hundred different methods of preparing a certain chemical compound? Conditions would be made as nearly uniform as possible and a thousand different trials would be undertaken by each process. Then everyone would be satisfied that the one producing the best results would be the one to be employed. What would be thought if the chemists called convention after convention, and each chemist gave his opinion and his experience? We would say "a good way to begin, but an extremely sorry way to end. Why did they not put an unbiased man in each of a hundred laboratories and then face the facts ?" We have been long in the condition of experience meetings in educational matters, and now we should lay the foundation for producing facts.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture no longer confines its efforts to issuing bulletins, however valuable they may have been. They were all that could have been done in centuries dead and gone, but now they send out men to all parts of the United States to conduct model farms among the farmers; they have railway trains to carry practical demonstrations to the very doors of the farmers. Why should we hesitate?

The past fifty years of the N. E. A. has been crowded full of good things, useful things, necessary things. Educators were brought together, papers read, discussions carried on, learned men consulted about the best way of doing things, each brought of the richness of his home experience and all went away benefited.

But for the fifty years of the N. E. A., in the dawn of the twentieth century, all are from Missouri: "they must be shown." Things must be demonstrated. The people Talk is cheap. The man who has done something is extolled far above the one who has simply talked about something.

must see.

Let the N. E. A. arrange for collecting experimental data concerning groups of children in various parts of the United States and under all conditions of life to pursue different courses of study through schools, following their after school life long enough to determine which course of study had best prepared them for citizenship. The United States commissioner of education and the United States Department of Agriculture would, without doubt, be glad to co-operate. The consolidated schools would furnish the best of laboratories.

I urge that a resolution be passed by this section requesting the N. E. A. to inaugurate such a movement and asking President Miller of this meeting to appoint a committee to investigate the expense of such a movement and to communicate with the departments at Washington as to their attitude in this matter. This could be a part of the work of the national organization, the Society of Agricultural Education before suggested.

CAP E. MILLER, county superintendent of schools, Sigourney, Iowa.-Some people think that boys and girls are naturally lazy. I don't think so. To me they are busy bodies, running over with an abundance of energy. They want to be doing things with their hands, as well as their minds. They like to experiment, and if teachers can connect this experimental tendency with school work good results will follow. No branch of study offers a better opportunity than that of elementary agriculture. You may be interested in a few experiments that have come under my observation. One is an experiment in cross-fertilization. A boy planted a hill of yellow field corn and surrounded it with a number of hills of sweet corn. At the proper season of the year he cut off the tassel of the field-corn stalk, so that the only kind of pollen that it could get was that from sweet corn. And here is the ear of corn that resulted from that experiment. The boy brought the ear of corn to me and told me about his experiment. When he had finished I called him by name and asked him what the experiment had taught him. This is what he told me: "It taught me that cross-fertilization is a real fact, that it takes place out of doors.