The agricultural experiment stations have shown that there is a permanent system of agriculture, the agricultural colleges have demonstrated that better farming can be taught. The big problem is to reach a sufficient number. In spite of the flood of bulletins, short courses and demonstration work, only a small part of the farmers have been reached. Besides, better farming will not come from mere information of better methods of farming, for knowledge alone will not change firmly fixed practices. The gospel of better farming will not spread, unless it is taught in the schools. Secondly, the country life movement had much to do with the growth of the movement. The report of the Commission forcibly directed the attention of the country to our rural problem. The periodical took up the matter and gave wide publicity to the needs and the opportunities of the country. Our magazines were filled with highly colored accounts of the results of scientific agriculture. The result was that ultimate saientific agriculture was accepted as the only solution of the rural problem. The country life movement created the social force which lead to the introduction of agriculture in our public schools. The Commission also called the attention of the educators to the misdirected rural schools. Agriculture was to redirect them. The educators were looking for a bemedy for the de-vitalized high school. Agriculture suggested itself as a new tonic and wonders were expected from (1) it. Bricker devoted a whole chapter to prove that agri culture will meets the requirements of every aim of education 1, op. cit. Chap.9. which has recently been advanced. In short, agriculture has become somewhat of a fad. Fourthly, legislation has doubtless given the greatest stimulus to the growth of agriculture in schools. The teaching of agriculture has in some states been made compulsory; more frequently state aid has been granted for agriculture in high schools. The development would have been much slower if it had not been for this legislation. It cannot be denied that the supreme need of agricultural instruction in schools fully warranted legislative aid, nevertheless, a large part was the expression of "sheer political pull or demagogic ambition". State-aid has not always been for the best of agricultural education, for it tempted school authorities to introduce agriculture in their school before the felt the need of such instruction. In many cases agriculture received as little attention as it did in our land-grant colleges when these were first established. The state-aid merely enabled schools to employ an additional teacher at the expense of the state. The same is true of the compulsory introduction of agriculture. In general, there has less of this kind of legislation than of the other, i.e. state-aid. (1) Fairchild claims that "it seems the merest nonsense for us to urge the legislature to pass laws compelling instruction in agriculture in elementary and high schools in the face of the fact that we lack teachers. The kind of instruction in these states where the teaching is made compulsory will be of such a poor quality as to bring discredit upon the whole movement, and it will be years to recover from it." 1. Fairchild. in Proc. A.A.A.C. 1914, p.172. For a digest of the legislation on agricultural education see Indiana, Rpt of Comm. on Industrial and Agricultural education.1912, p.99-101. Finally, the causes which have made vocational edu cation the most prominent question before the educational world are likewise causes for the rapid growth of agricultural instruction in public schools, for agricultural education is one of the several phases of vacational education. The demand for vocational education is partly explained by the changed industrial conditions. The direct cause, howeverm may be found in the great increase in the number of high schools, especially rural high schools, and in their attendance which has taken place during the past decade. It is an expression of the American passion for universal education. (1) But, as Davenport points out, "if we are to have universal education, it must contain a large element of the vocational." Our high schools have always been vocational, for preparation for college was a part of the preparation for the learned professions. But the majority are not preparing for college and will not enter the learned professions. The schools must change the work to make it vocational for the class which now attend their courses. Problems arising from the rapid growth. Agriculture is a collective Had the development of secondary agriculture been less rapid, we should have had more time to discover what to teach as secondary agriculture. term which includes a very wide field. We are just beginning to work out the content of secondary agriculture. Most teachers do not know what to teach and are hopelessly drift ing over the wide field and are teaching everything from " pure science remotely related to agriculture to the purely |
