Agricultural school

“ In 1840 they determine to establish twenty-five agricultural model schools—each of them in connection with an elementary national school. They subsequently establish twelve pupil-teacherships in their central agricultural institution—scholarships, in fact, which are competed for by the most promising students in their rural agricultural schools. ”

“ The practical work he can learn upon his father's farm during spring and summer, and the technical by continuing his studies during the winter months in a school of agriculture. The establishment of such winter schools is in contemplation. But, in the meanwhile, to bring home to farmers the advantages of a first-class agricultural education for their sons, and at the same time to teach these farmers the more practical application of science to agriculture, the Department decided on a preliminary period of Itinerant Instruction. ”

“ When once the people of any community come to think of the school house as a meeting-place for old folks as well as for children, what may we not expect of the rural school? We need adult education as well as juvenile education.
I have now no course of study to propose for agricultural or country-life subjects in the schools, but I would like to know how many teachers in the State desire to take up certain work of this nature as an experiment. The College of Agriculture will be glad to suggest the kind of work, if need be. The western states are undertaking this work: we must not be behind. ”

“ An important advance for the farmer was the increased opportunities in agricultural education. The Hatch Act had provided for agricultural programs to be established in the Land Grant Colleges, and ensuing legislation in 1917 called for farm courses to be added to the high school curriculum. ”

“ Agricultural education should begin in the primary school. In this school the point of view, however, should be broadly pedagogical rather than immediately vocational. Fortunately, the wise teaching of nature-study, the training of pupils to know and to love nature, the constant illustrations from the rural environment, the continual appeal to personal observation and experience, absolute loyalty to the farm point of view, are not only sound pedagogy, but form the best possible background for future vocational study. ”

“ The last point is of great importance because of the comparative absence in country communities of opportunity near at hand for good high-school training.
Agricultural education is distinctively technical, not in the restricted sense of mere technique, or even of applied science, but in the sense that it must be frankly vocational. It has to do with the preparation of men and women for the business of farming and for life in the rural community. ”

“ Agricultural education has made great progress within the past few years. Methods are crystallizing and at the same time the field is enlarging. We once thought of agricultural education as wholly special or professional, but we now conceive of it as an integral part of general and fundamental educational policy. As a college or university subject it is necessarily technical and semi-professional; but college work must articulate with the common-school work, as language and science now articulate with the schools. ”

“ Nothing can be more imperative than that the agricultural college shall send out to the farms both men and women who have not only the capacity to win business success, but who also have the social vision, who are moved to be of service to the farm community, and who have the training which will enable them to take intelligent leadership in institute, school, church, grange, and in all movements for rural progress. ”

“ But the change for the better has been so marked that all agricultural educators are extremely optimistic.
One of the most difficult and most important phases of agricultural education is that of a secondary grade. The great proportion of educated farmers will probably be trained for their business in secondary schools. This problem is being approached from many standpoints. The University of Minnesota established, some fourteen years ago, a school of agriculture, which now enrols several hundred [Pg 189] pupils of both sexes. ”

“ In establishing the lines and methods of secondary and elementary instruction in agriculture so that it may be useful and attractive to the masses of our rural youth, the leaders in agricultural science gathered in the Graduate School of Agriculture this summer will play an important part, and it is believed that they have gone out from this school with much inspiration to renewed efforts in this direction. ”

“ It is possible, however, to give children in the rural elementary school much useful information concerning agriculture. Perhaps better still, it is possible to develop a scientific attitude and interest that will lead to further study of the subject in the high school or agricultural college, and that will in the mean-time serve to attach the boys and girls to the farm.
The rural school pupils can be made familiar with the best modes of planting and cultivating the various crops, and with the diseases and insect enemies which threaten them ”

“ Often the school does not have facilities for teaching such subjects, often the teachers are employed only for a few months, and there is frequently a sentiment against innovation. It has been said that one reason why agricultural subjects are taught less in the rural schools of America than in those of some parts of Europe, is because of the few male teachers and the absence of school gardens. ”

“ Let us cease thinking so much of agricultural education, and devote ourselves to educational agriculture. So will the nation be made strong.
The life we live, even on the farm, is full of science and history, civics and economics, arithmetic and geography, poetry and art. The modern school helps the pupil to find these things in his daily life and, having found them, to apply them to living for his profit and enjoyment. For this reason it works largely through the "home project," boys' and girls' clubs, gardening, and many other activities. ”

“ The adoption of better agricultural methods must of necessity be preceded by the technical training of the school children who will be the farmers of the next generation, which can best be accomplished in graded schools with well equipped laboratories and with suitably trained teachers. The problem of providing such schools in rural communities has, in some instances, been solved by consolidating a number of rural [Pg 7] school districts and constructing a well equipped building to accommodate the students from an area several miles square. ”

“ I do not refer to the agricultural department, which it has in common with many colleges, nor to the special short agricultural course of three months in the winter, intended to give farmers’ boys, who enter it without examination or other connection with the University, the most available agricultural information in the briefest time, the intention being not to educate boys away from a taste for farming but to make them better farmers. The students must be not less than sixteen years old, and have a common-school education. ”

“ These people must be reached. The mere fact that their school days are forever behind them is no reason why they shall not receive somewhat of the inspiration and guidance that flow from the schools. So we have an imperative demand for the extension of [Pg 91] agricultural teaching out from the schools to the farm community. ”

“ We shall within ten years have a new generation of young men and women ready for college who have had their eyes opened as never before to the beauties of nature and to the fascination there is in the farmer's task of using nature for his own advantage.
But when we have increased the attendance at our agricultural colleges tenfold; when we have hundreds of agricultural schools teaching thousands of our youth the fundamentals of agriculture ”

“ That is, agricultural subjects are now to be considered as a part of primary and secondary school work, leading naturally to special work in the same subjects for those who desire technical training. In the schools the subjects are to be treated non-professionally, as primary means of educating the child. ”

“ It goes without saying that the rural high school should be an agricultural high school. This does not mean that it shall devote itself exclusively to teaching agriculture; but rather that, while it offers a broad range of culture and information, it shall emphasize those phases of subject-matter that will best fit into the interests and activities of farm life, instead of those phases that tend to lead toward the city or the market-place. Its four years of work must be fully equal to that of the best town or city high schools, but must in some degree be different work. ”

“ The many excellent schools, colleges, nature study leaflets, farmers' bulletins and reading courses, conferences, convocations, congresses, fairs, and the like, are all powerful educational factors designed to lead the race into higher agricultural activities. The agricultural schools, and higher institutions of that character, are wisely laying much stress upon stock raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape gardening, poultry raising, and every manipulation incident to the successful operation of this great industry. ”

“ We are making constant efforts to reach the actual rural schools and expect to utilize fully every means within our power, but it is work that is attended with many inherent difficulties. We sometimes feel that the agricultural status can be reached better through the hamlet, village, and some of the city schools than by means of the little red school house on the corner. ”

“ It was thought by some that boys were to be taught agriculture by working on a farm, and purely agricultural schools were founded with the mechanical arts attached. In other States classical schools of the stereotyped order were established, with more or less science; and, again, the endowment in others was devoted to scientific departments. The instruction of the farm and the teaching of pure agriculture have not succeeded in general, while the schools that have made prominent those studies relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts, upon the whole, have succeeded best. ”

“ An Agronomic Institute has been established lately at the Conservatory of Arts and Trades at Paris, having for its object the advancement of agriculture. It has fifteen professors, several of whom will be instructors of forestry in some of its branches. In addition to the instruction in forestry thus given, the French forestry administration is accustomed to send out agents to instruct classes in forestry at several of the agricultural schools. There are also inferior forest schools for the education of subaltern foresters at Grenoble and Villers-Cotterets. ”

“ There are four free agricultural schools besides the State College of Agriculture in Ithaca. Much assistance is given by the government to the agricultural needs of the State. Special courses are provided at many colleges for the various departments of agricultural work. Short courses are arranged for those who can only attend a few weeks, and at times in the year when farm work is slack.
Farmers’ Institutes are organized, at which experts discuss the best way of doing the varied work of the farm, especially how to increase production and to make the farm more profitable. ”

“ Modern agriculture is based upon the sciences; it will not do, therefore, to establish schools in the mere art of farming. But these agricultural high schools must deal with pupils who are comparatively immature, and who almost invariably have had no preparation in science. Nor should the courses at these schools be ultra-technical. They are to prepare men and women for life on the farm—men and women who are to lead in rural development, and who must get some inkling at least of the real farm question and its solution. ”

“ There the "land-grant" colleges, whether separate colleges or whether organized as colleges of state universities, are securing magnificent buildings for agriculture, are offering fully equipped courses, and are enrolling as students some of the best men in college, whom they are educating not only for agricultural teachers and experimenters but also for practical farmers. Of course, there are many grave problems connected with this subject, many farmers who do not yet respond to the call for educated agriculturists, and some colleges that do not yet appreciate their opportunity. ”

“ On the other hand, the farm point of view must be kept constantly before the student, as the engineering point of view is kept before the student in a college of civil engineering; but we are coming to a new way of accomplishing this. Mere teaching of the sciences that underlie agricultural practice will not accomplish it; nor, on the other hand, will drill in mere farm practice accomplish it. It is not the purpose of an agricultural college to make men farmers, but to educate farmers. ”

“ They are training young men for farm life. The farmers are responding to this new interest and are beginning to have great confidence in the colleges.
It is sometimes said that most farmers who get an agricultural education cannot be trained in the colleges. Doubtless this is true. Probably a very small proportion even of educated farmers can or will graduate from a full course in an agricultural college. Many will do so. There is no reason why a large proportion of the graduates of our college courses in agriculture may not go to the farm. ”