strictly scientific study of education it must be viewed from the standpoint of the educator rather than from that of the person educated.

The pedagogical laboratory, whether for research or for exemplification, is a school. Its equipment includes the children and the usual material means of instruction-books, apparatus, etc. The best results of the experimental study will be obtained by conforming as far as possible to the conventional equipment and organization of good public schools. Since a very important aspect of education is the adjustment of the immature person to his physical and social environment, a'l teaching acts must be in a measure tested by such results. In experiments in the culture of the individual person due consideration must always be given to the fact that he is a citizen whose life must not be turned away from the conventional lines along which society is rationally directing its own life. It is only under such restrictions that the needed equipment of children can be secured for a laboratory study of education.

The pedagogical laboratories in connection with normal schools are strictly teaching laboratories, designed to exemplify known educational truths. As "model schools" proper they are laboratories in which expert teachers exemplify in actual teaching principles and processes of education for the instruction of observing students. In order that the "observers" may understand and appreciate each teaching-act its aim and procedure are explained and discussed in a conference at a later period of the day. Excellent results are obtained in this way, both in the lives of the children performed upon and in the instruction of the prospective teachers. Such "model teaching" should be given more attention than it commonly receives in normal schools at present. These normal-school laboratories are also used as "practice schools," in which the students of education are permitted to use the children and the material equipment in corroborative experimentation. Such work is very helpful, but it needs to be closely directed by the supervising "critic teacher." As laboratory material children's lives are too valuable to be given freely into the hands of blundering inexperience. It is a too common fault in our normal-school economy to degrade the laboratory school into a loosely supervised common school for prospective teachers to learn how to teach in empirically. Every teaching-act in such a school, whether for "observation" or "practice," should be in exemplification of a known educational law and should find its meaning in the cultivation of the life of the child.

The research laboratory for the study of pedagogy differs as fully in design from the "model school" of a normal school as does the research laboratory of a paint manufactory from the chemical laboratory of a high school. Its sole purpose is the discovery of pedagogical facts and laws. The equipment is in general the same as in the "model school," consisting of the children and the common educational appliances of the schoolroom. The teachers are now scientists in search of truth--not psychologists, biologists, or sociologists, but pedagogists, who, with comprehensive knowledge of educational facts already established, patiently and conscientiously

devote themselves to their special field of research. Peculiar qualifications are required for their investigations, comprising not only the critical attitude of the scientist but also the constructive touch of the artist. To accurate knowledge and scientific curiosity regarding the theory of educational aims and processes must be added artistic skill in teaching. The research student must be a teacher, sympathetic with child-life and seeking how he may, by a proper manipulation of the laboratory materials, best guide that life to its fullest self-realization. His laboratory is to be conducted as a real school in which the children are to be cultivated with the same loving care that the gardener gives to his plants. The normative phase in pedagogy is predominant; it is a "normative science," rather that a "fact science." Its fundamental laws are ethical, dealing with the influence which one free personality may seek to exert over another for benevolent purposes; and the research student must never under the impulse of his scientific curiosity lose sight of his moral obligation to the life he is guiding.

The experiments in a pedagogical laboratory are teaching acts; and to have any efficacy in the discovery of pedagogical laws they must be carefully planned and accurately performed. The teaching must have all the attributes of well defined experimentation; the conditions must be strictly controlled, and the guiding stimulation must be directly applied to the child's life, freed as far as possible from all extraneous facts. The object of the experiment must be clearly apprehended, and the guiding touch deftly applied. Teaching is influencing another's life constructively; and a teaching experiment is designed to test a chosen teaching process as such, with a view to discovering what teaching acts are most efficacious. The reaction to be watched for is a resultant enlargement, enrichment, and acceleration of the child's life. Such experiments are distinguished radically from psychological experiments, in their purpose, their processes, and their results. A psychological experiment is designed to discover facts of mental life in general; a pedagogical experiment, on the other hand, aims at ascertaining how one life may helpfully influence another in its development. In the former the interest is purely one of scientific curiosity; in the latter it centers essentially in sympathetic cultivation. The psychologist is concerned only with analysis and explanation, while the pedagogist adds to these the normative aspect due to his moral obligation to the material upon which he works. The one studies processes as they are; the other, processes as they ought to be. The fundamental method of the psychologist is experimental introspection of his own mental processes, to which he may add indirect observation of the mental processes of others, either under natural conditions or under artificially controlled laboratory conditions; but in every case, whether concerned with his own life or that of another person, it is simply the mental processes as such that are studied. The method of the experimenting teacher, however, is that of the ambitious artist, critically studying his own artistic process rather than the product. While he measures the success of his efforts by the added value in the child's life, his interest centers

more in the process of manipulation of his materials than in the reactions secured. He is engaged in a scientific investigation of the educative process, not of childnature; and the outcome of his experiments is the discovery of pedagogical laws and the formulation of rules of the art of teaching.

It is impossible in the brief limits of such a paper as this to make any comprehensive enumeration of types of possible experiments for the pedagogical laboratory, however much such a course would appear to be demanded in justification of the writer's contention. It may also be doubted whether such a list of problems would have any practical value in advance of the establishing of particular laboratories. Each research student must formulate for himself the problems to the solution of which he would devote himself. In the present inchoative stage of the scientific study of pedagogy, when even the definition of education is undetermined, there can be no consensus of opinion as to fundamental laws or central truths, much less any precise defining of the field for experimental exploration. The pedagogist, even admitting that there is such a class of scientific students, must do what the psychologist has done in his laboratory from Fechner down, feel his way gradually to the definite formulation of problems in his separate laboratory. It would be presumptive folly for anyone to attempt to delimit the field of possible research. At most it can only be dogmatically asserted that there is such a field, and indicate in a general way something of its contour and relief. In the evolution of the race the responsibility of the more mature members for the cultivation of the lives of the less mature has been progressively recognized, and the field of education has found a place in the general mapping out of human activities. While but little attempt has been made at a scientific exploration of this field, some general features of it have been empirically determined. All of the dogmas in the schoolmaster's creed now credulously accepted need to be critically examined in the pedagogical laboratory. We need to ask ourselves anew many questions. Is it true that ontogenesis so parallels phylogenesis as to render the Culture-Epoch Theory a rational basis for a school curriculum? Is the use of the nature myths desirable in teaching young children to understand and appreciate their physical environment? Is the story overworked in primary education? Is it possible to discipline the mind apart from the content employed in the process? Is manual training essentially a matter of mental culture? And so on for scores of questions that can only be rationally answered through experimental research.

The rules for experimentation in laboratories in general apply with peculiar force in the pedagogical laboratory. The following may be instanced here:

Direct each experiment toward a single result. A clearly defined aim in the particular teaching-act is essential to any valuable result in the discovery of pedagogical truth. Indiscriminate angling for possible pedagogical facts is not practicable in this field. The rights of the children demand that every experiment be expressly for their welfare; and equally does the interest of the teaching art require well-directed procedure.

Select the educative material with the utmost care as to purity for the purpose sought

The means employed in the specific influencing of the child's life-current should be freed, as far as possible, from any catalytic or other disturbing factor.

Watch developing results with a view to modifying the experimental process at any stage. Since the experimenter is studying his own procedure, not child nature or the genesis of knowledge, he should hold the process closely under his control, ready to meet changes in his constantly active material.

Note the by-products as well as the chief results aimed at. The child's life is so complex that no purposed interference with it, however carefully guarded, can ever be seen in its simplicity. The experimenter should learn not only from the immediate results sought in his teaching-act but also from allied and secondary results revealed incidentally to his watchful eye.

Make due allowance for errors in the use of educative material. It is a common fault of teachers to proclaim "methods" as established from an apparently successful use under poorly defined conditions. The research student in the laboratory must be more conservative than this. He should keep constantly in mind that there may be unrecognized premises or missing data in all his conclusions.

Plan a series of experiments toward a total result in character. Education is the affirmative guidance of a whole life movement; and the value of a single teaching-act can be known only in a comprehensive view of the whole life. Further, education is a dynamic process, concerned with a growing entity; and the modifying influence must be progressively adapted to the developing life. Each teaching-act prepares for and demands another. The successful research student in this field must see the relation of each experiment to a possible succession of subsequent experiments. Nor is it a valid objection to such experimental study that it would be difficult to obtain children for a sufficiently long time for successful work. It would be no more difficult to secure the privilege of this extraordinary educational direction of the lives of children by expert teachers, when the real aim and value of such teaching is known, than it is for Luther Burbank to secure unlimited plant life for helpful modification.

The interests of exact educational science certainly demand that there should be established in connection with our leading colleges of education research pedagogical laboratories. Until our universities and normal schools recognize this field and possess it, teaching will continue to be the empirically learned trade of unskilled workmen rather than the artist life of the wellequipped specialist. The laboratory will do for pedagogy what it has done for every other modern science in which it is employed.

AGRICULTURE IN NORMAL SCHOOLS: COURSES OF
INSTRUCTION AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT

E. E. BALCOMB, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES,
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, WEATHERFORD, OKLA.

It is no longer a question whether state normal schools shall serve a course in agriculture in their educational menus. The normal schools are established to prepare teachers for our public schools. Whatever should be taught in the public schools must appear, and necessarily should first appear, in the curriculum of the normal schools.

Agriculture is already required in the elementary schools of several states, and is taught in many of the schools of other states. It will very soon be a required study in the elementary schools in every state in the Union, and

whether we wish it or not the normal schools must prepare teachers to give this instruction. It will soon be as absurd not to prepare teachers to instruct in agriculture as in geography, or in physiology.

It is no longer a question whether we shall serve the course but just what, and how much, shall be served, how much time shall be allowed for its mastication, where in the menu it shall be served, what equipment is necessary to make it digestible, and from whence the wherewithal to serve a respectable, palatable, and digestible course. These are the questions that confront us.

For my report for the Department of Agricultural Education and Rural Schools at this meeting I received personal letters from state normal schools. thruout the United States, and found that of the ninety-one reporting, sixty are giving courses in agriculture. They are serving the course in varying amounts and in various combinations. Some dish it up successfully with nature-study. This is an excellent plan, providing enough agriculture is given to sustain life. The trouble is that only the observational phase of agricultural education is apt to be emphasized.

Some serve agriculture with school gardens, making the garden the base. This brings good results, the only drawback being that all farm interests cannot be emphasized. This plan is especially adapted to city conditions. Professor Shaw, of Rochester, N. Y., has been very successful in this work and has created a desire among children to beautify back yards, well shown in some attractive photographs which he inclosed. Susan B. Sipe, of Washington, D. C., reports,

We have aroused a remarkable enthusiasm thruout the city on the subject of gardening. The children have purchased 160,000 penny packages of seeds. It has resulted in extensive home gardens and civic improvement.

Some combine agriculture with the science courses. The danger in this is that it is likely to be too technical, and give material that the elementary school children will not be able to digest. The only normal school I have known to fail in giving agriculture did scientific teaching. San Diego, Cal., seems to be successful by following the sciences with agriculture, but they mix it with experimental work. Valley City, N. D., proposes to culminate zoölogy in animal husbandry and botany in elementary agriculture. Undoubtedly they are practical, but it would be better to let animal husbandry culminate in zoology, and plant propagation in botany.

We used to begin geography with teaching definitions of geography, the equator, the ecliptic. We went to the north pole, led the children out into. the universe, viewed the solar system, and observed and reasoned about the revolutions of the earth upon its axis, then we alighted on Europe and went into Asia and around by Africa and sailed around Cape Horn, explored South America, and finally landed at Boston and came slowly across the continent and at last reached our own state and sometimes even our own county. But now we begin at home. Must we go through this same process with agricul