Full text of "Report of the Board of Education of Massachusetts on agricultural education. Submitted to the Legislature of Massachusetts in accordance with resolves approved May 28 and June 10, 1910. January, 1911"

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Che Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF EDUCATION _ ,-

MASSACHUSETTS

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

SUBMITTED TO THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS IN
ACCORDANCE WITH RESOLVES APPROVED
May 28 anp JuNE 10, 1910.

JANUARY, 1911.

BOSTON:
WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS,
18 Post OFFICE SQUARE.
1911.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Submission of the Report to the Legislature, : ; : ; 5

I. — Preliminary Statements, Summary of the Report and Recommen-
dations, ‘ ; : ; : ; : : , i cf

II. — Does Massachusetts Farming warrant the Establishment of a
System of Agricultural Schools? . : : : ; 4 iby

III. — The System of Agricultural Schools recommended for Massachu-
setts, . : : : : : : : : : : 21

IV. — Co-operation between School and Home Farm Necessary to an
Effective System of Agricultural Schools for Massachusetts, . 35

V.— The Part-time and Project Method Necessary to an Effective
System of Agricultural Schools for Massachusetts, ; ; 41

VI.— The Problem of securing Competent Instructors for a System
of Agricultural Schools in Massachusetts, . , : : 62

VIL. — Agricultural Departments in Public High Schools the Principal
Present Need in Massachusetts Agricultural Education, . 3 66
VIII. — Possible Locations for Agricultural Schools or Departments, . 74

IX.— Recommendation with regard to Agricultural Education for
Worcester, . : : : : . : : : ‘ 86

X.— Agriculture as a Phase of Liberal Education in the High Schools
of Massachusetts, 87

XI. — Agriculture as a Phase of Liberal Education in the Elementary
Schools of Massachusetts, * . : : : ; : : 93

APPENDIX.

Proposed Codification of the Law relating to Industrial, Agri-
cultural and Household Arts Education, : : : . 100

Che Commonwealth of Mlassachusetts.

REPORT ON
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives.

In accordance with the provisions of chapters 108 and 133,
Resolves of 1910, concerning the advisability of establishing a
system of agricultural schools throughout the Commonwealth,
and concerning the practicability and desirability of establish-
ing a farm school in the city of Worcester, the Board of
Education herewith reports the results of investigations and
recommendations, made under its direction by the Commissioner
of Education, David Snedden, Deputy Commissioner Charles
A. Prosser and Special Agent Rufus W. Stimson.

The Board adopts the report and endorses the recommenda-
tions.

FREDERICK P. FISH, Chairman,
SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD,
ELLA LYMAN CABOT,
SIMEON B. CHASE,
LEVI L. CONANT,
THOMAS B. FITZPATRICK,
FREDERICK W. HAMILTON,
PAUL Bo HANUS,
CLINTON Q. RICHMOND,

Members of the Board.

Jan. 1, 1911.

PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS, SUMMARY OF THE REPORT
AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

Following is the text of the resolves passed by the Legisla-
Lure 2 —

RESOLVES OF 1910, CHAPTER 108.

Resolved, That the state board of education shall investigate the prac-
ticability and desirability of establishing a farm school in the city of
Worcester in which instruction may be given, free, in the raising of
fruits, vegetables, flowers, grains, plants and trees, and in the care
of domestic animals, and in which similar instruction suitable to their
years may be given to children. The board shall report in print to the
general court, with such recommendations as it may deem proper, not
later than January fifth, nineteen hundred and eleven. [Approved
May 28, 1910.

RESOLVES OF 1910, CHAPTER 133.

Resolved, That the board of education is hereby authorized and di-
rected to investigate the advisability of establishing a system of agri-
cultural schools throughout the commonwealth, and to report the result
of its investigation with its recommendations to the next general court
not later than the second Wednesday in January, nineteen hundred and
eleven. [Approved June 10, 1910.

In obedience to these resolves, the Board of Education di-
rected the Commissioner of Education to make the necessary
investigations and to engage expert assistance. Mr. Rufus W.
Stimson, director of Smith’s Agricultural Sehool and North-
ampton School of Industries, was appointed to assist in making
the investigations and preparing the report.

Special acknowledgment is here made of the assistance of
the following: President Kenyon L. Butterfield and members
of the faculty of Massachusetts Agricultural College; Secre-
tary J. Lewis Ellsworth of the State Board of Agriculture;
Mr. Dick J. Crosby, specialist, and Mr. F. W. Howe, assisi-
ant specialist, in agricultural education, of the United States
Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations; Mr.

Arthur C. Monahan, agricultural specialist of the United States
Bureau of Education; the Hon. C. D. Richardson, Past Master,
and the Hon. Charles M. Gardner, Master, of the Massachu-
setts State Grange; and many other citizens of Massachusetts.

A brief survey has been made of the development of agri-
cultural education in Massachusetts and like work elsewhere.
The economic status and prospects of farming, as conducted by
both men and women, in this State, have been examined.

Selected and typical centers have been studied, as to the facil-
ities for transportation, as to the most promising lines of farm-
ing in practice, and as to the probable enrollment in an
agricultural school or department. All parts of the State have
thus received attention, with the exception of the islands of
Dukes and Nantucket. It will be easily understood that this
report can deal only in general terms with the results of these
local investigations.

Printed sources of information have been used, and confer-
ences have been held both with groups and with individuals.
By far the largest number of consultations have been held on
their own premises with farmers who are obtaining their liv-
ing from their agricultural work, and who are regarded by their
communities as sound in judgment, methods and ideas.

No serious appraisement of educational needs and values has
been undertaken, beyond the strict limits of agricultural train-
ing adapted to youths from fourteen years of age upward.
In fact, attention has been almost exclusively confined to agri-
cultural education suitable for boys, and perhaps for some girls,
who intend to follow farming for a livelihood, and who, but for
the type of training recommended in this report, probably would
follow the practice of a long line of their predecessors, and drop
out of school altogether.

Provision of agricultural education for girls who have passed
their fourteenth birthday has been considered. This problem
raises very important questions, both educational and economic.
There is little experience, so far, by which to be guided. It is
believed, therefore, that this subject should be further investi-
gated, and that the questions involved can best be answered by
actual experiments made in connection with the agricultural
schools and departments proposed in this report.

Frypines in Brier.

The agricultural and educational conditions in this Common-
wealth are believed to warrant the following conclusions : —

1. Farming in Massachusetts is a highly important vocation.

2. Massachusetts farming, where most profitably practiced, is
peculiarly dependent upon, and responsive to, scientific knowl-
edge and improved methods. Its increasing diversity and spe-
cialization, which are such promising elements in its progress,
make more difficult the task of preparation for it, and make
more emphatic the duty of the State to the boys and girls who
are to follow it.

3. Agencies for carrying scientific knowledge and improved
methods to adults, and to students of such age and preliminary
training as to enable them to meet the usual college entrance
requirements, appear to have been both carefully considered
and fairly well established.

4, There is a decided lack of, and a pronounced demand for,
agricultural training of a scientific and very practical character,
suitable for boys, and perhaps for some girls, fourteen years of
age and older, who expect to gain their livelihood from, and to
spend their lives on, Massachusetts farms.

5. The growing commercial and industrial school facilities
open to boys and girls fourteen years of age and older, tend to
lure away from the land and into the congested centers, in the
absence of competent and attractive agricultural education,
many young people whose natural aptitudes would make them, if
properly trained, better and more prosperous citizens in the
country.

6. Financial aid for agricultural education, suitable for
adults and for college students, has for a half-century been fur-
nished by this Commonwealth and by the federal government.
State aid for vocational training of secondary grade in agricul-
ture, is, moreover, entirely in keeping with State aid for inde-
pendent industrial school work, and to some extent was provided
for by chapter 505 of the Acts of 1906 and chapter 572 of the
Acts of 1908.

-7. The slow development of secondary agricultural schools,
the testimony of farmers throughout the State, and the demand

for the investigation here reported which was made by the Legis-
lature of 1910, are evidence of the need of additional legislation
providing for this kind of agricultural education.

8. School committees have long been authorized and em-
powered to provide instruction in agriculture in the public ele-
mentary and high schools of the State. While this training has
been more liberal and cultural than vocational in its aims and
results, it merits the hearty support of local communities in this
Commonwealth.

Instruction in gardening and in other matters relating to the
farm should be encouraged and guided in all the elementary
schools of the State, where the home environment or the school
facilities make productive work and personal observation by the
pupils practicable,

As an important aid to liberal education in all of the high
schools of the State, particularly in those which have a rural
environment, guidance and encouragement should be given, with
a view to the incorporation of generous proportions of agricul-
tural subject matter in the science instruction, and to the sym-
pathetic correlation of certain parts of the instruction in English,
history, civics and hygiene with rural life and labor, institutions
and progress.

9. In order that more adequate school facilities may be pro-
vided in this Commonwealth for preparing those above fourteen
years of age for productive and profitable farming, vocational
agricultural departments are proposed in this report for estab-
lishment in existing high schools.

The methods and vocational standards of instruction for the
development of such agricultural departments have nowhere
been tried in the exaet form proposed in this report. Such
approxnnations to this kind of training as have been found in
this State and elsewhere, and the very general interest in
and approval of it found among representative Massachusetts
farmers with whom it has been discussed, are believed to war-
rant giving the department type a thorough trial.

The experimental character of the department type, it will
he noticed, has been recognized in the proposed codification of
the law. It is designed that the problems whieh would con-
front such departments shall be carefully studied, that their
work shall be thoroughly done, and that no department shall

ala

be attempted where conditions for success are not reasonably
favorable.

While annual State aid to the amount of $10,000 might
make ten departments possible, it is by no means certain that
it would be found advisable to establish ten departments, or
even five, the first year. On the other hand, if the proposed
department type of agricultural training should prove in actual
use to embody the merit which it is believed to possess, pro-
vision for increasing the number beyond ten could in future
be made.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

In view, then, of the needs of the State as we have found
them, the following three recommendations are respectfully
submitted : —

1. We recommend that State aid, equal to that granted any
town, or group of towns constituting a district, for industrial
schools, be continued as at present provided for in the case of
any town, or group of towns constituting a district, for the estab-
lishment and maintenance of an independent agricultural school.
(See chapter 505, Acts of 1906, and chapter 572, Acts of 1908.)

2. We recommend that provision be made for the establish-
ment of agricultural departments in existing high schools, with
State aid, and with rigid definition and enforcement of voca-
tional standards.

3. We recommend that the above provisions shall be con-
sidered to be sufficient for meeting the needs of Worcester, in
common with those of all other parts of the Commonwealth,
and, therefore, to obviate all necessity for special legislation on
behalf of that city.

The above recommendations are, of course, to be interpreted
in the light of this entire report.

Proposep LrqisLation,

The Board is submitting to the General Court a proposed
codification of legislation relating to industrial, agricultural and
household arts education. In that codification is included what
is beheved to be ample legal provision for the establishment of a
system of agricultural schools.

For convenient reference, a copy of the proposed codifica-
tion is bound herewith as an Appendix.

ive

DOES MASSACHUSETTS FARMING WARRANT
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SYSTEM OF
AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS?

Does farming in Massachusetts offer sufficiently important
and attractive careers to warrant the establishment of a sys-
tem of agricultural schools in this Commonwealth, to train
boys and girls who have reached their fourteenth birthday for
farm life and work? The present chapter briefly reviews farm-
ing incentives and prospects as they are found in this State
to-day.

1. Incentives to Farming in Massachusetts are Many. — In
a given farming enterprise there may be blended any two or
three, or there may be blended all, of the incentives which make
farming in this State attractive.

(1) The stress and uncertainties of other callings lead many
to engage in farming. Severe competition and uncertainty as
to the future in business have resulted in the purchase and
development of Massachusetts farm land. Prospects for a
profitable investment, a stable occupation and a lifelong employ-
ment at congenial work are incentives to redirection of effort
in such a case.

A section of this State was pointed out, during the investi-
gation leading to this report, which was said to have been bought
up, one small holding after another, by “ broken-down me-

> Jt might be fairly considered one of the least

chanics.’
promising sections for farming. The operations undertaken
were on a small scale; in no instance on a large one. Health
and vigor, and self-sustaining life for their children and them-
selves, free from the severe competition in the trades and
industries, were the primary incentives in these cases.

Farming in Massachusetts has become increasingly attract-
ive to immigrants who have left the old world and come here
with the determination to sueceed. These immigrants are not
so much peasants as they are pioneers. They are thrifty and
observant; they are quick to adopt new ideas and methods.

Money is saved and invested. Theirs is a program of hope.
As their savings and their holdings increase in value, their
standards of living rise; they begin to educate their children,
and presently are on a level with other good citizens in their
communities.

(2) The attractions and associations in the family are strong
motives with many. Farm after farm is owned and operated
now by the same family, in whose ancestral line it has remained
for eight or even nine generations.

(3) The natural charm of the country may be said to be the
motive for the establishment of the growing number of more or
less magnificent estates in Massachusetts. The North Shore,
the South Shore and the Berkshires are noted for the men from
the great cities and even from distant States who have sought
Massachusetts land for its picturesque actualities and possibili-
ties.

Most of these estates possess well-rounded agricultural equip-
ment, and have created a large demand for skilled gardeners,
florists, fruit growers, herdsmen, grooms and trainers. They
employ expert farm managers, and supply their own tables with
the cleanest milk and the choicest farm, garden, orchard and
greenhouse products. The stables of at least one of these estates
shelter harness horse championship winners in international
competitions. The owners pay the highest prices for the best-
bred live stock, and in notable instances have put their farming
operations on a strictly economic basis, as object lessons for
neighboring farmers.

Beside and among these more splendid estates there is a mul-
titude of simpler establishments, maintained on a more modest
seale, for ike purposes.

Sometimes one hears the protest that such estates are, as a
whole, detrimental to the public good. Whatever may or may
not be the merits of this contention from the point of view of
the community at large, it is certain that their establishment
cannot at present be regarded as detrimental to the interests of
those who must be dependent upon farming for a livelihood.

(4) A life purswit to be found in farming is the compelling
incentive of many people who engage in agriculture. This
State has its misfits and failures on farms, as in every other

line of human activity; but it also has farmers who love,
and are finding profitable, the careers on the land which they
have chosen. The success of the latter is undoubtedly due to
two causes: (@) to a fundamental king for the land and all
the natural accompaniments of its cultivation; and (b) to the
economic status and prospects of farming in this Common-
wealth, discussed in the following section. The investigations
on which this report is based yielded abundant and convincing
evidence that Massachusetts farmers believe, not only that farm-
ing in general offers a desirable career, but also that those who
intend to make farming a life pursuit in this State will find
themselves put to no serious disadvantage because their lot is
to be cast in this Commonwealth.

2. Farming prospects are good, and are steadily improving.
Having glanced over some of the incentives which have led
men to engage in farming operations, we may now consider
certain facts and figures with regard to the condition of agri-
culture in this State.

(1) The agricultural census of Massachusetts shows that
farming prospects are good. The Massachusetts State census
for 1905 reported the value of property devoted to agricul-
ture in general in this State as $288,153,000. The annual
farming output was valued at $73,110,000. The growth of
agriculture in importance is shown by the fact that in 1875
the total value of output was $37,073,000; in 1885, $47,756,-
000; in 1895, $52,880,000; and in 1905, $73,110,000.

In 1905 the value of the agricultural products of Worcester
County was reported as $14,279,000; and of the city of Worces-
ter alone as $1,491,000.

There is no reason for believing that State census figures
for 1910 would show retrogression. In three decades, ended
in 1905, the annual value of agricultural products in this State
had practically doubled. The United States census may not
show large additions to the agricultural population of this
Commonwealth, but it may reasonably be expected to show
gains, at least commensurate with those of the last generation,
in the annual value of Massachusetts agricultural products.

(2) Massachusetts farmers say farming prospects are promis-
ing. Most of the conferences held in preparation for this report

were personal interviews with Massachusetts farmers on their
own premises, — farmers who are regarded by their communities
as thoroughly reliable, and who are dependent on their farming
for a living. In all sections of the State the prevailing opinion
is that no State offers a better opportunity for profitable agri-
culture and a satisfactory home life on the farm than does
Massachusetts. This was shown by statements such as the
following : —

“We have good land.” “We have the best markets in the world.”
“ We have good roads and short hauls.” ‘ We have excellent shipping
facilities, and the cost of shipment is light when compared with the
cost of shipping produce from distant points.” ‘“ We can generally get
enough good help.” “I inerease my market garden production a little
every year; the more I produce, the more I can sell.”

“The cities are growing so much faster than the rate of increase of
production from the land, that excessive competition is not to be feared,
and prices for prime farm products are bound to continue good and
are likely to become better.” “ The great variety of soils and products
is favorable to satisfactory farming, taking one year with another, in
this State.” “A keen eye to the markets, and shipment to New York
or other out-of-the-State points, when prices rule low here and high
there, take care of any temporary surplus or slump in home market
prices.” “ For choice fruit there are almost unbelievable possibilities
in the home market, with the port of Boston ready for shipment of
practically unlimited quantities, especially of apples, to foreign
markets.”

“ We have good libraries, publie schools and churches.” ‘* The Grange

in Massachusetts is a splendid organization for getting the farmers
together for pleasure and the improvement of their life and work.”

Such are the things said by the farmers themselves of the
advantages of farming in this State.

(3) The small number of abandoned farms shows farming
prospects to be improving. Secretary Ellsworth of the State
Board of Agriculture now has in press a report of 160 pages,
entitled ‘ Massachusetts, her Agricultural Resources, Advan-
tages and Opportunities, with a List of Farms for Sale.” The
publication of this report at just this moment is singularly op-
portune, and makes unnecessary any extended treatment in this
chapter of the subject now touched upon.

In his preface Secretary Ellsworth says that his publication

is issued at the beginning of an exceptional era in Massachusetts agri-
culture... . While an effort was made to secure the names of parties
owning or controlling strictly abandoned farms, the attempt was in-
effectual, and we are foreed to confess that in our belief there are few
such farms in the State. Nevertheless, reports confirm the opinion that
there is an enormous amount of land lying idle or partly deserted, and
that many farms are not worked to anywhere near their limit.

(4) Improved tillage makes farming prospects better. Mas-
sachusetts land is remarkably responsive to better farming.
Land once tilled but now lying for the moment largely or even
entirely neglected may well be regarded as a sign post of dor-
mant fertility. Such land is simply resting. Striking examples
of this fact came to view during the investigation the past sum-
mer. One instance may suffice for the present purpose, and the
fact that this is furnished by the work of a woman whose farm
was visited renders it none the less significant.

The owner of an intensively tilled farm, with a model dairy
and well-developed piggery, poultry, market-garden and green-
house departments, desired to increase her output. She therefore
bought a 20-acre field. This lay next adjoining her own im-
proved land, but had not been cropped within the memory of
the oldest inhabitant of that section, —not for at least sixty
years, and probably not for more than a century. It was
sparsely strewn with wild grass, gray moss, sweet fern and bay-
berry. The former owner had often said that he would keep a
yoke of oxen if he only thought he could grow enough feed for
them, but he did not believe he could do it.

The past summer, its first season in tillage at the hands of its
present owner, this field yielded 10 acres of rye, straw and
grain ; 250 bushels of splendid potatoes; 80 tons of ensilage, now
in the silo; 2 acres of heavy field corn, at the time of the inter-
view standing in the shocks; and 2 tons of sugar pumpkins;
while at the time the field was visited there were 8 acres in
clover, sown in the rye and showing a good “ catch,” 1-acre
in turnips, with the remainder of the field laid down to rye
again.

(5) Increase of investments in land shows that farming is
becoming more attractive as a business enterprise. een busi-
ness sagacity has led a caterer well known in this State to

purchase a farm and develop it as an adjunct to his city busi-
ness. His farm is a strictly financial proposition. Though
model equipment and conditions have been established, he
does not use it for a summer residence, and his visits to the
farm are for inspection and for conference with his manager.
Strict accounts are kept. Waste from the catering kitchens
is sold to the piggery department. Poultry, market-garden, pig-
gery, fruit and dairy products are sold to the catering ends of the
combined business. The books show that the farm is a paying
investment.

“ Golden New England,” by Mr. Sylvester Baxter (‘‘ The
Outlook,” Sept. 24, 1910, pages 179-190), is an account of
the status and prospects of farming in this section. Mr. Bax-
ter gives the following instance: —

On a certain Essex County place a Boston business man has gone
into apples in a way that ranks the undertaking as a great business
enterprise. A single place, with something lke 50,000 apple trees,
not only cuts a large figure in Massachusetts, — even in the great west
it would mean “ going some.”

(6) With little farms, intensive farming yields large returns.
Contrasted with the western prairies, the smaller fields along
and among the hills and streams of Massachusetts have seemed to
some impossible of profitable cultivation. By them it is even
asserted that Massachusetts is “not an agricultural State.”
Such a remark is met by the Massachusetts farmer with a blank
look of amazement. He has no doubt that farming in this
State is a permanent and an increasingly important vocation.
He knows that fundamental to advancing agriculture is a
market commensurate with its output; and he sees the manu-
facturing towns in his neighborhood growing with a rapidity
almost beyond belief.

Even in the west, not the enormous holding, but the smaller
one is now recognized as the more promising basis for the most
permanent and profitable agricultural production, Evidence
is abundant that the little farm may yield large returns. One
of the tidiest bits of farming seen the past summer was on a
10-acre farm, of which part was in pasture and only about: 6
acres were under cultivation. Some of the land was tilted on

edge, in typical New England fashion. All of the fields were
more or less irregular in their boundaries, and from some of
them cartloads of stones had been removed, with more to fol-
low. The land was “kept busy.” Market gardening was the
main feature, but there was fruit; and there were “ side lines ”

of dairying and poultry, for utilizing “ clippings” and unsal-

able remnants of the principal products. This farm is yield-
ing a profit of $5,000 a year.

Other farms visited, which to the unaccustomed eye might
look small, are yielding net returns of from $2,000 to $10,000,
and even $12,000, a year. Greater thrift and satisfaction in
work well done one could not hope to find in any State.

Mr. Baxter, in the article above cited, gives the following
imstances : —

A half-aere strawberry patch, ... yields 5,000 quarts, worth $625.
Eleven hundred dollars have come from an acre and a half of canta-
loups. There are thousands of acres in asparagus in Massachusetts alone,
with profits of $300 or even $600 an acre. An Italian makes from
$4,000 to $5,000 a year off of 4 acres in market gardening. Five acres
in peaches have yielded $2,500 in one year. Apples! That is a story
in itself. And flowers? Well, there is a lady on Cape Cod who makes
$200 or so every summer on a patch of sweet peas little bigger than
a eity back yard. As for potatoes and corn, there are numerous big
records.

(7) Comparison of productivity with other States shows
farming prospects to be good. Secretary Ellsworth, in the
pamphlet before mentioned, is outspoken and explicit in his
estimate of the agricultural prospects of Massachusetts. This
has previously been intimated, and will more clearly appear
from the following passage : —

... When ratio of aggregate production to aggregate acreage, yield
per acre of certain crops and character of tillage are considered, Massa-
chusetts ranks favorably with the leading agricultural States. The
following data, gleaned from the latest official statistics, add strength
to this statement : —

In 1900 Massachusetts had 3,147,064 acres in farms, which yielded
the previous year $42,298,274 worth of farm products. As compared
with the five leading agricultural States, we find California, with nine
times this number of acres in farms, producing only three times as

many dollars’ worth of farm products; Illinois, with ten times the
farm acreage, producing eight times as many dollars’ worth of farm
products; Iowa, with eleven times the farm acreage, producing nine
times as many dollars’ worth of farm products; Kansas, with thirteen
times the farm acreage, producing four and one-half times as many
dollars’ worth of farm products; and Texas, with forty times the farm
acreage, producing five times as many dollars’ worth of farm produets.

Further, from the estimates of the United States Department of
Agriculture for 1908 these striking figures are obtained: the average
production per acre of Indian corn for the United States was 26.2
bushels; for Massachusetts, 40.4 bushels; of oats for the United States,
25 bushels; for Massachusetts, 33 bushels; of potatoes for the United
States, 85.7 bushels; for Massachusetts, 95 bushels. In relative rank
of production per acre, Massachusetts stands among the States, for corn
fourth, for oats thirteenth, for potatoes twelfth. When compared with
the leading States in these products, Massachusetts ranks in production
per acre, for corn fourth, for oats first and for potatoes second.

The crops used for comparison are not the leading agricultural!
products of Massachusetts, but the figures indicate what the intensive
methods of agriculture practiced by her farmers is bringing forth from
the soil. While comparative figures for other States of those products
which are most valuable to Massachusetts are not available, it is safe to
assert, without fear of contradiction, that, whereas the production per
acre of such field crops as corn, oats and potatoes is relatively high, the
production per acre of fruits and other vegetables which respond so
much more readily to intensive treatment is not exceeded by that of
any other State of the same or higher latitude.

3. Conclusions. — It is believed, in short, that the experience
of those who are successfully engaged in farming here, and the
economic status and prospects of farming in this Common-
wealth, show conclusively that exceptional success awaits the
work of the exceptional man or woman in this field of economic
activity; and that farming is bound to afford a profitable and
satisfactory living for the average boy or girl who enters this
field with a thrifty, alert and progressive spirit, and with a
proper preliminary education.

At the beginning of the investigation leading to this report,
the question was raised as to whether a system of agricultural
schools would be likely to result in increased valuation of
taxable property on farms, and thus return directly to the public
treasury at least scme portion of its cost. One farmer put
the gist of the answers of all his fellows into the succinct reply,

20 ¥

that it did not take the assessors long to discover any improve-
ments that he made on his farm as a result of better methods.

Finally, it appears that farming in Massachusetts, viewed
from the standpoint of both its present status and its prospects,
is a calling the successful pursuit of which requires a know]l-
edge of the science that lies back of the practice of agriculture
as a handicraft; that, in order to secure a widespread pro-
ductive and profitable agriculture, it is necessary that voca-
tional schools supported and controlled by the public should
train the youth in the best methods of farming; and that farm-
ing in Massachusetts is a calling of sufficient importance to
justify both local and State support of those forms of educa-
tion that will effectively prepare boys, and, to some extent at
least, girls, for it.

att,

THE SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS RECOM-—
MENDED FOR MASSACHUSETTS.

It was pointed .out in the previous chapter that the condi-
tion and prospects of farming in Massachusetts seem to justify
a system of agricultural schools. The question arises as to
what types of schools are desirable for this Commonwealth.
Two promise to be etfective. These are the separate or inde-
pendent agricultural school, and the agricultural department in

the publie high school.

1. Srparatre AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL.

(1) Definition and Examples. — The separate agricultural
school aims to promote, by education, economic farming. Its
location, plant, staff and courses of training are determined by
this object. Such a school may, or may not, be on the same
site with an institution of different grade or type. Whatever
its proximity to other kinds of institutions, it requires a dis-
tinctly agricultural atmosphere and a farming environment.

Instances of this type are: Minnesota Agricultural School,
St. Anthony Park; the secondary agricultural courses at Guelph,
Ont., and Storrs, Conn.; and Smith’s Agricultural School,
Northampton, Mass.

(2) Minimum Standards. — Present experience seems to
show that schools designed to give vocational education must
meet certain minimum requirements in order to do effective
work. The following may be given as examples of such re-
quirements for the separate agricultural schools: —

A. Location and Plant.—a. Accessibility.— The eco-
nomic operation of a separate agricultural school and its use-
fulness to the State depend upon a considerable enrollment of
students. Experience demonstrates that an attendance of less
than 100 means either an excessive per capita cost or inferior
teaching. The spot selected for it, therefore, should be easily
reached from a considerable farming area.

b. Acreage and Variety of Soil. — The land should be typi-
cal of the surrounding region, and permit of demonstration of
the best methods of farming for that section of the State. If
not a special school, devoted, for example, to market gardening,
it should have a sufficient acreage and variety of land for land-
scape gardening, forestry and general farm tillage, as well as for
gardening and nursery plots.

c. Buildings. — The buildings should be especially designed
and grouped for the peculiar work of the school. Such build-
ings as barns and poultry houses should be of the kind any
farmer with a moderate amount of capital would wish to erect
as parts of a convenient, sanitary and practical plant.

d. Live Stock. —- Quarters for all kinds of live stock suited
to the locality should be provided. The school might, or might
not, own the live stock dealt with in class demonstrations. The
best obtainable specimens of the breeds studied should be seen
and handled, and proper accommodations for keeping them
should make it easy to borrow or hire the animals when needed.
When not filled with live stock, these quarters would still be
on view as models of their several kinds for housing and car-
ing for the various types of farm animals.

e. Other Equipment. — The equipment should be moder:
and varied, but every piece should be applicable to some proj-
ect in practical farming. Submitted to the test of practical
farming, much, for example, of the equipment usually found
in high school science laboratories would be omitted and other
equipment would be selected. A museum for collecting out-oi-
date farm implements and machines would serve a most ex-
cellent informational purpose; but the main object should be to
provide the best models of implements and machines for pres-
ent economic use.

B. Support and Contrel. — The cost of such schools is large,
generally too large to be provided by a single community. In
good schools the initial cost of the plant, including adequate land,
buildings and equipment, and of providing for from 100 to 150
students, has been from $40,000 upward. The annual mainte-
nance cost has varied from $8,000 upward. In some eases the
cost has been less than, in others it has considerably exceeded, the
figures here named for both plant and maintenance.

a. Local Support. — The school should be established and

equipped by the local community,

by a town or city, or by a
group of towns or cities, or towns and cities formed into a dis-
trict. This should insure economy of construction and adapta-
tion to local needs. The local community should provide, also, °
one-half the cost of maintenance.

b. State Support. — One-half the maintenance cost of these
schools should, in accordance with present statutory provisions,
be borne by the State. In consideration of State support, the
school should be subject to supervision and approval by the
Board of Education as to organization, control, location, equip-
ment, courses of study, qualifications of teachers, methods of
instruction, conditions of admission and employment of pupils
and expenditures of money.

CO. Conditions of Admission and Promotion. — All applicants
for admission above fourteen years of age should be received,
provided, after a brief. probationary period, they proved able to
profit by the instruction.

Advancement from subject to subject or from class to class in
farming subjects should be dependent solely upon the proficiency
of the pupil in such subjects, and not upon his standing in Eng-
lish, history or other similar studies. Upon withdrawal from the
school, whether upon graduation or earlier in the course, every
student should be given a certificate containing a statement of
the work which he had satisfactorily completed.

D. Teaching Staff. —a. Vocational Spirit. — The teaching
staff must be in complete sympathy with the vocational purpose
the school is designed to serve. The instructors should be chosen
from those who have found, or who intend to find, their hfe work
in this field of education.

b. Fitness. — Aptitude for teaching fourteen to eighteen year
old boys of exceedingly practical interests and tendencies is indis-
pensable. One may succeed as a teacher of men, and fail as a
teacher of boys. One may succeed in a cultural school with
book subjects, yet utterly fail in teaching practical subjects in a
vocational school. To natural aptitude must also be added spe-
cial training in the science and in the practice of different kinds
of farming.

c. Originality and Resourcefulness. — In devising and lead-

ing the students to work out definite farming activities, the
teachers must be able to bring to bear in new and largely untried
ways knowledge of the general field of agricultural science and
practice. Having selected things to be done, it must rest with
the teaching staff to find help for doing these things, — in related
portions of mathematics, chemistry, physical science, biology
and economics.

d. Co-operation. — One teacher must help another. Unity
of effort is no less important than is unity of spirit. All eyes
must first be fixed on the things to be done; then, towards doing
those things in the most intelligent and skillful manner, each
member of the staff should contribute his particular part.

EH. Course of Preparation for General Farming. — Courses
should be provided for boys and girls. The girls should be
trained in all household arts and affairs. They should also be
allowed, if not required, to take training in such subjects as
gardening, poultry raising, bee-keeping and ornamental planting.
Here, however, only the agricultural course as designed for the
boys is discussed.

a. Length of Course.
ing at fourteen should be provided. Each year, however, should

A four-years course for boys enter-

be complete in itself. This would permit of withdrawal with
profit at the end of any year. It would permit, also, of admit-
ting for a year, or for two years, an older student who could not
eive longer time to the work.

b. Length of Session.— The year should begin not earlier
than the middle of September, and close not later than the mid-
dle of June. This would make possible a school year of thirty-
six weeks, or a school year of some fifty weeks, under a co-opera-
tive home and school plan. The period of each school day de-
voted to the school study and activities should probably not ex-
eeed six hours as a maximum. The time before and after the
daily school session and on Saturdays would afford proper
opportunity for day-to-day work at home, where continuity of
effort, as in the care and handling of live stock, is a necessity.

F. Principles to be observed in Methods of Instruction. —
a. Interest. — The essential minimum of the study of books
should be combined with the maximum attention to practical
work. ‘Things themselves should be handled, studied and rea-

soned about; operations, many in number and of an extremely
practical nature, should be performed. General rules, statements
or ideas may follow fresh handling of concrete detail, — they
should seldom precede it.

b. Responsibility. — Active relationship to real life, and per-
sistent participation in farming affairs while the student is yet
in school, should be fundamental aims. Methods should be devel-
oped, therefore, which involve student ownership and home co-
operation.

G. Gradation of Farming Actiwities or Projects. —a. Pirst-
year projects.! — The first year should deal mainly with proj-
ects which involve an elementary knowledge of soils and plant
life, together with the mathematics related thereto. Kitchen
garden vegetables and flowering plants should be grown.

b. Second-year Projects. — Certain second-year projects
should involve extensive experimental study of agricultural
botany; others should involve the scientific principles and the
mathematics necessary for successful work in handling the
smaller farm animals, such as poultry, pigs and bees.

c. Third-year Projects. — Fruit-growing and market-garden-
ing projects should receive chief attention in the third year.
The first principles of agricultural chemistry and the manipu-
lation of the laboratory apparatus required for their elucida-
tion should be mastered. Some attention should be given to the
mathematies required for field surveys, for business transac-
tions and for figuring the cost of producing and marketing the
crops under consideration. A careful study should be made of
the pumps, engines and other mechanical devices necessary for
spraying,

d. Fourth-year Projects. — The major projects of the fourth
year should deal with animal husbandry, including dairying.
There should be one term of advanced agricultural chemistry.
Here the greatest maturity in age and mental grasp have been
attained. The largest money values are here involved, and the
most difficult problems of land fertility, rotation of crops, ra-
tions, breeding and animal diseases are here to be finally dealt
with. Farm management, law of contracts and farm accounts

should be studied.

1 The word “ project,’’ as here used, is defined in chapter V.

e. Possible Modifications. — It is believed that the above
gradation of projects by years would be found a good outline for
the development of courses of study suited to local needs. It
would afford much flexibility as to details of schedules and in-
struction. At the same time it is recognized that other outlines
worthy of approval may grow from year to year out of the work
of the separate agricultural schools.

HH. Good Citizenship. — Along with the major farming in-
terests of these four years there should be developed the inter-
ests and powers of good citizenship, through reading, discus-
sion of current events, and the clear and logical expression of
ideas in writing and public address.

I. Home Residence and Work.—a. Home Influence. —
Students should reside at home. The age of the students makes
this desirable, if not imperative.

b. Home Haperimentation. — Residence at home should
vastly multiply the benefits of the school. There would be op-
portunity for the orderly but immediate trying out of new
ideas and methods, where otherwise habits of postponement
would be formed. From day to day the teachings of the school
should be subjected, on a modest scale at least, to the practical
tests of the home farm conditions of every student. In no
other way can the maximum value of such a school be realized.

c. Home Credit. — Home work should be provided for in the
system of marking, and full credit for it should be given
towards graduation. For promoting a keen spirit of emulation,
eatherings of pupils, parents and others should be held at the
best farms, or where the teachings of the school are best ex-
emplhfied. Prizes for excellence in home work should be

awarded.
J. School Supervision. — Wome work should not only be

advised or suggested, it should also be actively supervised from
month to month. At least one instructor should be employed
for this purpose throughout the growing and harvesting seasons.

Ik. Student Ownership. —a. At the School. — All flower
and vegetable gardening products of the student plots at the
school should be the property of the students, provided the
plots be regularly and properly cared for throughout the sum-

mer. The plots should be of such size that about one-half day
a week during the summer would suffice for their cultivation.
Experience has shown that plots of this size yield crops of sufti-
cient value to repay the students for their work. Here school
control should be absolute.

b. At Home. — Parents should give the students at least
modest property rights at home, and exact proportionate re-
sponsibility and industry. Part of the garden might be given
or rented the first year; a pen of poultry, a pen of pigs and a
hive of bees, the second; part of the orchard, the third; and a
cow, the fourth. Accurate account of outgo and income should
be kept in all cases.

No better test of the practicability of the teachings of the
school could be made. Though school control is likely to be
more or less modified by home control, good results should still
be had by proper choice of projects and harmonizing of inter-
ests,

L. School Operations and Products. —a. School operations
should be primarily for educational purposes. A bad method
may be followed, and beside it an approved method; the profit
of one may, or may not, offset the loss of the other. Both to-
gether make a perfect demonstration for purposes of instruction.

The results of such demonstrations should be followed and
observed at proper intervals by the students. They should be
required to report at the school on the call of the instructor for
noting the demonstration work of the school in connection with
the instruction they have severally received.

b. School Products. — Apart from the products of the first-
year gardening work, all products of the school farm should be
disposed of for the benefit of the school. The operations of the
school departments should be under the direct control of the in-
structors who teach the subjects the departments represent.
Accurate profit and loss accounts for each department should
be kept.

M. The Special School.— A separate agricultural school
might be either general or special in character. If general, such
a school would undertake, usually by a four-years course of
training, to fit its pupils for at least the general lines of farm

production practiced in the surrounding territory. If special,
a separate agricultural school might limit the length of its
course to one or two years, and confine its instruction to a single
specialized line of production, such as market gardening. Such
a special school might receive students after they had spent two
or more years in an agricultural school devoted to preparation
for general farming; and it might also admit older students
without previous preparation in a general school, if they were
able to profit from the training offered.

N. More Advanced Education. — If on graduation a student
should desire to enter the Agricultural College, one or two years
of further study at his local high school should enable him to
meet the conventional college entrance requirements. He might
have to enter conditioned in one year of French or German; but
a condition in such a subject could be easily removed, since credit
should be given for his extensive agricultural training.

(3) General Observations. — That a thoroughly vocational
education in agriculture can be given in the separate agricul-
tural school, where properly equipped, has been sufficiently
demonstrated by experience to be beyond the range of uwncer-
tainty. As noted before, however, such a school in this State
should be so situated as to be easily accessible to 100 or more
pupils; its plant would be expensive and its maintenance cost
by no means small.

The separate agricultural school, as herein discussed, might
be a local school, readily accessible to a considerable farming
population, whose pupils lived at home and secured a part of
their practical training through the directed performance of
their duties on the home place; or it might be a boarding school
for pupils gathered from a considerable area.

Such a local school is impracticable in agricultural areas inter-
sected by mountains and pasture lands, where but a compara-
tively small number of suitable pupils are within daily travelling
distance of a central point. Many communities of this type exist
in Massachusetts.

Many towns or groups of towns, so situated, are able to main-
tain only moderate-sized high schools, and have within easy
reach only a limited number of students. The taxable valuation

of these small centers of population would forbid the existence
of so expensive an institution as the separate agricultural school.
In a system of agricultural education designed to meet the
needs of the youth of the entire Commonwealth, it would prob-
ably be necessary to provide either the boarding school of agri-
culture or the agricultural department in the public high school,
for the training of the young people of the isolated communities.

The boarding school of agriculture is worthy of considera-
tion, because of the attention which it has received in other
States. It does not, however, seem necessary to adopt it under
the conditions which prevail in a compact State ike Massachu-
setts, where distances are so short and transportation facilities
are so good. Rather it is believed that here the separate local
agricultural school (without the boarding feature) should serve
the needs of thickly settled farming districts; and that the agri-
cultural department in the rural high school, as described in
the closing part of this chapter, should, instead of the boarding
school, train for effective farming those who live in the more
sparsely populated farming communities.

2, Separate AGRIcuLTURAL DEPARTMENT.

(1) General Observations. — In preparing this report, a care-
ful analysis has been made of the conditions of the smaller com-
munities as related to the necessary conditions of vocational
education in agriculture, with the result that a type of school
found developed to some extent in Canada suggests itself as
being the most feasible means of meeting Massachusetts re-
quirements. This has been styled the agricultural department
of an existing high school, and contemplates the building up
within an ordinary high school of a vocational department,
corresponding to the vocational departments in commercial
studies found in some village high schools.

From facts and conditions adduced below, it is believed that
in some localities in Massachusetts, under very careful super-
vision, such agricultural departments would be possible, and
could, if rightly administered, give genuine vocational training
in agriculture. The ‘ part-time work,’ or school and home-
farm co-operative method, discussed in chapter V. of this report,

would, it is believed, make such departments vocationally effec-
tive as preparatory courses for productive farming in this Com-
monwealth,

(2) Definition and Present Attempts. — Vocational agricul-
tural education as a separate department in a high school should
be as distinctive in its object and atmosphere as is the separate
agricultural school. Such a department would best be estab-
lished in a secondary school which had a farming environment
and an abundance of readily accessible illustrative material, in
varieties of farm land, equipment, operations and products.

There are fourteen departments somewhat of this type in the
Provinee of Ontario: six established in 1906, two in 1908, three
in 1909 and three in 1910. It is intended to develop this
work until every county in that province has been covered.

Work of like nature is now being given its first year of trial
by the Friends’ Bloomingdale Academy, Bloomingdale, Parke
County, Indiana. The practical courses in farm management
established by the Agricultural Guild of the University of
Chicago, in 1908, utilize for practical experience farm equip-
ment privately owned and land operated for economic purposes,
as distinguished from land and equipment provided and main-
tained by endowment or puble funds.

(3) Minimum Standards. — The agricultural department
must maintain minimum standards of similar character to
those fixed for the separate agricultural school. An outline is
here given of vital factors for the suecess of such a depart-
ments

A. Instructor. — There should be at least one specialist for
instruction in agriculture. This teacher should be a man,
should preferably have been brought up on a farm, and should,
where practicable, be a graduate of an agricultural college. In
short, he should be, first of all, practical, a man interested in
farming and capable in farm work and management.

His time and attention should be devoted exclusively to farm-
ing subjects. THis service should be rendered throughout the
erowing and harvesting seasons, in part as supervisor of school
projects at the homes of the students, in part as teacher of
agriculture at the school. He might also, if requested to do so.
act as advisor among farmers in the vicinity of the school.

B. School Quarters and Equipment. — a. Class Room. — A
class room should be given this instructor for his exclusive use.
This should be on the ground floor, or in a high, well-hghted
basement, and should be such as to permit of in-door demon-
strations of farm animals, implements and machines. It might,
or might not, be in the high school building.

b. Equipment and Appurtenances. — His equipment should
at least include a Babcock testing outfit, seed-corn germinators,
special agricultural physics apparatus, individual sets of gar-
dening tools, hot beds and cold frames. Greenhouse space,
though not more than a 6-foot by 380-foot lean-to, heated from
the regular school-heating plant, would be an advantage; as
would, also, be an acre of land for garden, nursery and demon-
stration plots.

c. Headquarters for the Instructor. — An office should be
provided. This should be large enough for a library and read-
ing room, and fitted up for such use. There should be furnished
in this room as complete a file as possible of books, bulletins
and periodicals on farming specialties.

C. Home Equipment and Co-operation. — Practically all the
materials, implements and animals required for demonstra-
tions should be brought to the school by the students, or should
be examined on thrifty farms not too far distant. Everything
examined would thus be part and parcel of actual farming out-
fits: each implement, animal and building would represent some
farmer’s judgment and money. The school would at every
point be dealing with definite economic propositions.

D. Conditions of Admission and Promotion. — Boys above
fourteen years of age should be admitted to the work of the
agricultural department of the high school when, upon trial,
they show themselves able to profit by the training, even though
they have not satisfactorily completed all the work of the ele-
mentary school. Girls of the same age might attend certain
classes. It would be necessary, as is pointed out at another place,
for those pursuing the work of the agricultural department as
an elective course to take all studies save the art and science
of agriculture in the regular high school classes. No student
should be prevented from attending the agricultural classes or

be deprived of promotion in them by: inability to take high
rank in other subjects.

HH. Course of Study. — The agricultural department in the
school should offer training in the practice and the science of
agriculture. The course in agriculture should be elective to the
regular pupils of the high school, and, as before said, should be
open to those above fourteen who intend to be farmers, even
though they might not be able to pursue successfully certain other
branches of study offered by the school. Regular pupils pursuing
the course in farming should be permitted to substitute satis-
factory work therein for the requirements of the school in such
cultural subjects as Latin or German, or for certain courses in
physics, chemistry and biology.

In this way it would be possible and advisable that regular
pupils, pursuing, as a legitimate part of their study, the course
in agriculture, should at the close of a four years course gradu-
ate with their fellows, and receive a certificate or diploma setting
forth the work which they had satisfactorily performed.

The school course should permit of continuous work at home,
morning, evening and on Saturday, as in the separate agricul-
tural school.

a. Dominant Motive. — As in the separate school, the atmos-
phere and the dominant object in the agricultural department
should be agricultural and vocational. Much of this atmosphere
might with profit be extended to other departments of the
school. Contact with farming objects and activities would vital-
ize the instruction in the regular courses in science and in
manual arts.

b. Grouping Studies and Students. — By putting first and
second year students together in one class, and third and fourth
together in another, each student would be given double the
amount of distinctively agricultural training by the instructor
which would be possible were the students handled in four divi-
sions instead of in two. By the same means the efficiency and
enthusiasm of the teacher would be multiplied. In alternate
years the energy and attention of all could be concentrated now
on animal husbandry and then on horticultural subjects, or
vice versa.

c. Winter School at the Agricultural College. — Moreover,
the regulations should permit a student who could meet the age
requirement to take winter short courses, at least during his
third and fourth years, at the Agricultural College, with no
prejudice to graduation with his class; that is to say, credit for
a short course at the college should be accepted as meeting in full
the winter-term demands of any year at the school.

d. Schedules of the Instructor and Students. —'The program
should schedule the instructor for from sixteen to twenty periods
a week during the fall and spring terms, and allow the winter
term for his vacation. The instructor, in close connection with
his class instruction, should be scheduled for inspection and ad-
visory work at the homes of the students and among other farms
throughout the summer.

e. Transfer of Students to a Special School. — Should a spe-
cial school for such training as market gardening be established,
with a one-year or a two-years course, a student desiring the
special training of such a school might be transferred to it at
the close of the second or third year of the general farming
course of the agricultural department of an existing high school.

F, Support and Control. —a. State Support. — The salary
of instructors for such departments would probably vary from
$1,000 to $1,500 a year, and should be paid in part by the State,
as elsewhere proposed in this report. (See Appendix, page 100.)

b. Local Support. — Quarters and equipment, and the neces-
sary adjustments of curriculum for providing a well-balanced
course of study, inclusive of the agricultural subjects, should be
furnished by the local authorities. If the local school possessed
wood-working, forging and drawing equipment, correlation of
the manual arts work with farming would add decided value to
the work of the agricultural department. The local authorities
should also pay one-third of the instructor’s salary.

c. Local Committee. — This department might be visited by
a special local committee interested in practical farming, and
the advice of such a committee might be sought in developing
this branch of the work of the school.

d. State Supervision and Approval. — All matters relating
to organization, control, location, equipment, courses of study,

qualifications of teachers, methods of instruction, conditions of
admission and employment of pupils and expenditures of money,
while immediately in charge of the local school authorities,
should be subject to supervision and approval by the Board
of Education.

G. More Advanced Training. — A student who had decided
to go to college should find the same opportunities open for
preparing himself for college entrance as does the student in the
separate agricultural school. An unusually capable boy might
carry a course in mathematics or a foreign language in the reg-
ular classes of the school while taking his agricultural course.
On completion of his agricultural course, one additional year
of study would perhaps suffice for completing his college pre-
paratory work.

Up to this point this report has discussed the farming sit-
uation in Massachusetts that seems to justify a system of
agricultural education for the Commonwealth, the types of vo-
eational schools in agriculture that seem to be advisable for such
a system, and the standards which should be insisted upon in
order to make their work effective.

oo
Or

IV.

CO-OPERATION BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOME FARM
NECESSARY TO AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM
OF AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS
FOR MASSACHUSETTS.

The previous chapter discussed the separate agricultural
school and the agricultural department in a high school as
desirable types of vocational school education in agriculture for
Massachusetts.

It is the purpose of the present chapter to point out why
co-operation between the school and the home farm is necessary,
in order to make the work of such schools effective.

Vocational education is education that has for its controlling
purpose the fitting of persons of either sex for definite callings
or pursuits. Vocational schools of every type are coming to a
recognition of the fact that practice and thinking about the
practice, practical and technical training must go hand in hand
in effective vocational education.

The reason is not far to seek. Most people learn better by
seeing and by doing, than from books. The experience of a con-
siderable portion of the pupils in industrial and agricultural
schools proves conclusively that many persons who have been
unable to master principles and theories as taught by the or-
dinary method of the book, have large power of mastering prin-
ciples when these are approached through the background of
their daily employment; and that, best of all, they possess large
capacity to retain and apply knowledge so taught and so com-
prehended.

Practice and thinking about the practice constitute the key to
the situation. Industrial and trade schools are securing the
needed practice for their pupils to-day, either through school
shops which they are endeavoring to make economically pro-
ductive, or through the actual wage-earning occupations of
the pupils. Thinking about the practice is secured by a prop-
erly selected and adjusted course of closely related studies

at the school in which part of their time is spent. The shop
provides in illustrations and practical work the raw materials ;
the school, the finished educational product.

Farm Boys may be favorably placed, but require Concurrent
Practice and thinking about that Practice. — Boys and girls
who expect to follow farming for a living probably are not ex-
ceptions to the general rule. Vocationally effective education
for them, also, must involve an intimate relationship between
practical and technical training.

Related Study at the School.— The question now arises,
Where is the boy to secure correct experience in farming? It
will not be difficult for the school to give related scientific knowl-
edge, provided the pupil brings to it a background of experi-
ence in agricultural activities that enables him to assimilate
it, and provided he is able, through his practice on a farm of
some type, to fix the principles and theories gained in the school
room.

Previous Farm Practice not Sufficient. — It seems to be clear
that the pupils of an agricultural school do not, as a rule, bring
to their studies about agriculture a body of previous farm ex-
perience which the school can utilize in giving a working mas-
tery of the principles and theories that lie back of the best
practice. The greater number come from farm homes where
they may, or may not, have been fortunate enough to receive
directed practice in scientific agriculture. There is at least a
slight movement from city to country. It may be expected that
a small portion of the enrollment in agricultural schools of
secondary grade will consist of city and village boys who have
had no training in the routine of the farm. In order that such
boys may bring to their training something like the same ad-
vantages possessed by the country-bred pupil, they should, if
possible, previous to entering the school have spent at least
one year on a farm. While this discussion is primarily con-
cerned with the country-bred boy, it is, in the principles it lays
down, equally or even more forcibly applicable to the city or
village boy who has farming aspirations.

The previous farm experience of the country-bred boy may
have been directed by a farmer who has been too hard pressed

by his own farm routine to reflect on his own practice in agri-
culture, or to direct the work of his son so that it might be most
educative from the vocational point of view.

It is significant that many of those who are most desirous
that their sons shall receive agricultural education through the
instruction and direction of the school are among the most
intelligent and prosperous farmers in the Commonwealth. They
clearly see, for the reasons given in chapter VII., that’ even the
best farmers cannot expect to be the best schoolmasters in this
line of training.

The condition of Massachusetts farming in general is not
satisfactory to the leaders of agriculture nor to the community
at large. This means that most farm boys, so far as they bring
farm experience to the school, are more likely to have been
brought up to use bad or indifferent methods than to use the
best.

Moreover, the boy of fourteen as a rule has been too young to
have been able to reflect seriously or extensively on the problems
connected with the agricultural activities which he has observed
or in which he has had a part.

It is possible, even in the absence of closely related practice, to
give much effective vocational training in the sciences related to
different farming operations to those of mature mind who have
had experience in them. <A farmer, for example, who had for-
merly kept a herd of cows, might attend a course of instruction
in the principles of scientific dairying. By this means he might
make a second venture in that field more intelligent and more
profitable. No one will question, however, that the dairyman
who was able to put into immediate effect in his own herd the
scientific knowledge gained in such a course would acquire a
greater working mastery of the principles that he back of the
successful pursuit of his calling.

It seems to be clear, in short, that the more or less elementary,
more or less undirected or misdirected, more or less undigested
farming experience of the country-bred child cannot, in the
absence of additional practical training, be made a safe basis for
the effective teaching of agriculture as a vocation.

It is true that, on entering the agricultural school or an agri-
cultural department in a high school, that boy or girl must

derive greatest profit who brings to the work the richest store of
previous practical farm experience; but even with the best-pre-
pared pupil it will not be safe to suppose that farm experience
of the younger years will be found fixed and vivid in the mem-
ory, to be drawn upon at will, as the classroom discussions shift
now to one phase and now to another of farming.

Past experience may aid in the work, and will do so to the
extent to which that experience was intelligent and to the extent
to which it remains vivid. Practical farming and the book
study of the subject, concurrently carried on under the direction
of a specially prepared instructor, appear to be the only certain
method of securing these ends. Thinking may refer back to
this experience to some extent; it must to some extent anticipate
future activity; but in the main it is believed that the training
of the agricutural school, to be effective, must at once provide,
and thereafter concurrently interrelate, as far as possible, these
two supplementary processes, — directed farm practice and
study about that practice.

Provisions for Proper Farm Practice. — How many school
authorities secure for pupils seeking preparation for profitable
agriculture properly directed experience in farming processes ?
Agricultural schools of every type, in order to be effective,
should, it is believed, provide at least a small equipment on or
near the school premises, for observation and demonstration work
in correct methods of farming. Such an equipment would be
possible in the typical rural community. A few communities
may be sufliciently prosperous to establish and maintain agri-
cultural schools equipped with the farming plant, equipment,
animals and materials necessary to diversified and effective
training in the arts of agriculture. Such an outlay of public
money probably lies, if not beyond the resources, at least be-
yond the civic power, of the typical rural community which
most needs agricultural education.

If agricultural schools could be equipped with extensive
school farms, it would be necessary, in order to secure the best
results, that pupils should devote a considerable portion of their
time, now employed at home, particularly in the growing sea-
son, to directed activities on the school premises. But it would

be impracticable to withdraw to any great extent boys from ser-
vice on the home farm for service on the school farm. Further-
more, all the operations connected with the tillage of the soil, -
such as the care and observation of experimental tracts, lack
significance until the seasons of growth and harvest, — seasons
that find the school session ended, and the pupils widely scat-
tered and possibly engaged in cultivating or harvesting the crops
on the home farm.

As the most promising solution of the problem of securing
effective vocational training in agriculture, this report recom-
mends that the home farms of the pupils be utilized in what
may be termed “ part-time work ” in agriculture.

Part-time work in agriculture would be utilizing home land,
equipment and time, outside school hours, for practical train-
ing supervised by the school. The term “ part-time work” is
a descriptive expression, brought over from current discussion
of certain forms of industrial training, for use in unfolding
the possibilities of this proposed type of training in the field
of education in agriculture. Part-time work in industrial ed-
ucation means that the student spends part of the time required
for his training in a shop or manufacturing establishment, and
part of the time at the school building; both school and shop
work, however, being intimately related and supplementary to
each other.

Part-time work as apphed to agricultural education would
mean that the student must spend part of the time required
for his education in productive farm work, preferably at home,
and part of his time at the school; the farm work and school
study to be closely correlated by the school at points selected
from season to season or from year to year, and to be given the
highest possible educational value by competent school super-
vision.

Equitable. — The same causes that have brought about a
widespread demand for co-operation between school and shop
in industrial training, make just as necessary similar co-opera-
tion between the school and the home farm in agricultural
training. Historically, shop and farm at one time gave the
youth all his vocational training. Of late the tendency, has

40)

been, under the stress of modern conditions, to throw upon the
schools almost the entire responsibility for the industrial and
agricultural education of minors. It is becoming increasingly
apparent that the school cannot meet this difficult and expen-
sive burden, unaided. It would therefore seem to be equitable
that the schools should bestow the related theoretical instruction
which they are so well designed to give, leaving to factory and
farm the task of giving, under expert direction, the practical
experience which they are well equipped to confer.

Economical. — Such part-time work would reduce the cost
of agricultural training of secondary grade so as to place eflec-
tive training for the farm within the reach of many communi-
ties which would otherwise be unable to secure it. Part-time
work would obviate the necessity of sending the boy away from
home in order to secure the benefits of agricultural training.
The cost of living for the boy would be less at home than at a
boarding school. Parents would be deprived of the services of
the boy during only a portion of the day.

Effective. — Co-operative work between the school and the
home farm would be the most effective known means of trying
out, under the conditions of individual farms over widely scat-
tered areas, methods which have proved to be profitable else-
where, as, for example, at the State Agricultural Experiment
Station. Such co-operation would furnish the only experi-
mental means by which each boy could try out the merits of
the home farm as an agency for producing profits, when treated
by the best-known methods; that is to say, part-time work would
furnish the only means whereby the principles and methods
aught by the school could be positively adapted by the boy to
the economic conditions on the farm on which he might spend
his working days. Part-time work thus ‘should give to agri-
cultural teaching the reality of actual life, as but little school
training can give it.

Conclusion. — It is believed, in short, that every purpose of
economy in the establishment and maintenance of a system of
agricultural schools, and of efficiency in the education provided,
would be insured by utilization to the largest possible extent
of home land, equipment and time in the training of boys for
the successful pursuit of farming in this Commonwealth.

Ve,

THE PART-TIME AND PROJECT METHOD NECESSARY
TO AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL
SCHOOLS FOR MASSACHUSETTS.

The present chapter outlines a method by which, it is believed,
education through the plan of “ part-time work ” in agriculture,
recommended in chapter IV., may be made effective.

Under the ‘“ part-time work” plan, developed into a system
for the whole State, centers would be selected. The instruction
would be adapted to the kinds of farming prevalent in the dis-
tricts surrounding those centers. The practical applications of
the instruction would thus be subject to the obstacles continually
encountered under the economic farming conditions found in
any given district; just as they would, also, be aided by all
the influences in this Commonwealth which make for the im-
provement of farming. The plan, as an educational process,
is believed to possess unquestionable merit, because farming
activities would readily resolve themselves into what may be
termed farming “ projects.”

A Farming Project 1s a Thing to be done. — 1. Improvement
Projects. — The thing done might contribute some element of

improvement about the farm, as constructing a concrete walk
leading to the front door, the planting and nurturing of shade
trees, the making and maintaining of an attractive lawn.

2. Experimental Projects. — The thing done might be of an
experimental nature, as the planting of an untried variety of
fruit, the feeding of an untried ration, the testing of an untried
spraying mixture, or the testing of one or another of much
advertised roofing materials.

3. Productive Projects. — Finally, the thing done might be
of a productive nature, as the growing of a crop of clover or
alfalfa, the growing of a field of potatoes, the growing of a crop
of silage corn, or the production of eggs for the market.

A Farming Project is, further, Something to be done on a
Farm, which would involve a Limited and Definite Amount of

Equipment, Materials and Time, and which would be directed
toward the Accomplishment of a Specified and Valuable Result.
— 1. Improvement.-—— An improvement project might be lim-
ited, for example, to a given length and width of concrete walk,
constructed of a given kind of stone, sand and cement, costing
not to exceed a given sum of money, and requiring not to exceed
a specified amount of time.

2. Hxperimental. — An experimental project might be lim-
ited, for example, to the planting of a given number of trees of
an untried fruit, on a piece of ground which could well be spared
for such a hazard, and involving a cost in time and money which
it was felt could be afforded at a given time for this risk.

3. Productive. — A productive project might be lmited, for
example, to the growing of a given area of clover or alfalfa, at a
given cost for seed, fertilizer and labor, and for the securing
of a specitied quantity and value of feeding stuff or roughage.

Finally, a Farming Project, as the Term is here used, is a
Thing to be done ona Farm, which, in the Preparation for doing
it and in the Carrying of it out to a Successful Result, would
involve a Thorough-going Educational Process. —1. Improve-
ment. — The improvement project of constructing a concrete
walk to the front door might involve the study of the nature of
cement; its action on sand and gravel or broken stone; its resist-
ant qualities to the weather; the seasons at which it could be
used ; its cost, as compared with other materials, such as boards,
plank, tar, brick, flagging and asphalt; the mathematical deter-
mination of the proportions of cement, sand and stone to be
used; the geometrical determination of the sections into which
it should be divided, and whether it should be crowned or flat ;
the geographical sources of the raw material; and the market
conditions for purchasing cement.

2. Haperimental. — The experimental project of planting an
untried variety of fruit might involve the study of the probable
adaptability of the variety selected to the soil, the climate and
the market demands within reach of the farm.

3. Productive. — The productive project of growing a crop
of clover or alfalfa might involve the study of the various vari-
eties of clover; the comparative adaptability of these varieties

to the given field on which the crop was to be grown and to the
climate of the locality ; the most reliable places for the purchase
of seed ; the best time for seeding; the best time for cutting; the
best methods of curing and storing; the mathematical calculation
as to the saving in cost of feeding stuffs which the crop would
afford; the chemical elements it would furnish in the tation;
and the chemical, biological and mechanical effects on the soil
in which it would be grown.

A Complete Definition of a“ Project” as here used has Three
Elements. — Thus, it will be seen that a complete definition of
a farming project as here used involves the three elements of
(1) something to be done on a farm, (2) under specified con-
ditions and for a specified valuable result, and (3) requiring
a thorough-going training.

Project Fields or Classes. — There are certain broad, general
fields in which numerous projects might be found. Among
these are: —

Vegetable gardening.

Flower gardening.

Landscape gardening.

Orcharding.

Small fruit growing.

Growing of general farm crops.

Farm forestry.

Greenhouse crops.

Production of poultry products.

Beekeeping.

Swine husbandry.

Sheep raising.

Horse raising.

Dairying.

Agricultural physics and mechanies as applied to farm buildings,
drainage, irrigation, and providing and maintaining farm
machinery.

Major Projects.

Projects within the above general fields
might be major projects. Of major projects, the following may
be given as examples : —

1. Caring for the Kitchen Garden. — Under the direction of

the school, a boy over fourteen years of age might be required
or permitted to cultivate the kitchen garden for supplying the
ag with vegetables or small fruit.

2. Keeping a Pen of Poultry. — Under the direction of the
school, he might be required or permitted to keep a pen of, let
us say, twenty-five birds, for the purpose of producing a net
profit on the enterprise.

3. Caring for a Selected Part of the Orchard. — Under the
direction of the school, he might be required or permitted to
care for a part of the home orchard, say five apple trees, so as
to improve the quality of the fruit and thus gain a larger net
return.

4, Raising a Specified Crop of Potatoes. — Under the di-
rection of the school, he might be required or permitted to raise
on the home farm an acre, or a tenth of an acre, of potatoes,
according to his age and strength, so as to secure the best pos-
sible crop and the largest possible financial return.

5. Caring for One Cow. — Under the direction of the school,
he might be required or permitted to care for one cow in the
home herd, with a view to securing from her the highest pro-
duction of which she was capable, and to determining whether
she were yielding an adequate profit.

Major and Minor Projects. — While the above does not con-
stitute by any means a complete list of possible major proj-
ects, it is intended to be suggestive of the many and diversified
kinds of projects that might be feasible for use in the part-time
work under consideration. A major project may include a great
many minor projects.

Minor Projects are related to Major Projects as Parts to the
Whole. — Minor projects include all the diversified activities
which the boy must perform in order to bring the major project
which he had undertaken to a successful conclusion.

Details of a Project Suitable for First or Second Year In-
struction. — Later in this discussion (pages 56-60) details are
given of a project suitable for use with third or fourth year
students. The subject in that case is a staple product likely
to be grown on every farm, or at least in every farm garden.

At this point in the present chapter it is desirable that the
possible working out of the project method of instruction should
be illustrated by details of a subject which would be suitable
for use with students of the first or second year.

Tn the list of major projects above given, the second, ** Keep-
ing a Pen of Poultry,” will, perhaps, best serve this purpose.
This project permits of clear analysis. It is sufficiently familiar
to make intelligible such technical terms as it may be necessary
to use. It deals with a branch of agricultural production found
on every farm and at many village homes; yet a branch from
which, when conducted on a strictly business basis, it is very
difficult to make a profit. It has to do with farm products which
are of very great economic importance for the advancement of
agriculture in this State; since Massachusetts, while admirably
suited for poultry keeping, imports $25,000,000 of poultry and
eges annually, and produces less than $6,000,000 worth per
year. (See “ Agriculture of Massachusetts,” the report of the
Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, 1909, page 119.)

Owing to the attention now being given poultry keeping by
the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, materials for
teaching the subject scientifically and practically are increasing,
and make this one of the most promising lines of project in-
struction for school use. Poultry keeping affords one of the
best projects for transition from the boy’s treatment of animals
as pet stock to his treatment of them as vital factors in economic
agricultural production.

Important as this poultry project is, however, it will, of
course, be understood that there are many other projects suitable
for first and second year use. This project is but a single
example of the many which might have been given.

Minor Projects. — Suppose the major project in preparation
for purposes of instruction be No. 2, above given, ‘“ Keeping a
Pen of Poultry.” Then certain minor projects necessary for
carrying out this major project might be: —

1. The building of a poultry house (if necessary), according
to plans and specifications worked out at the schoolhouse. This
minor project in turn could be broken up into a number of

subordinate minor projects necessary to its successful com-

pletion, such as: —
(1) The Selection of a Site for the Poultry House. — Here
the decision made might take into consideration : —

A. The suitability of the soil for poultry culture.

B. The condition of the underdrainage of the site, and the possibilities
of securing proper surface conditions.

C. Conditions of sunlight and shade as factors in the proper care of
fowls.

D. Convenience of access from house and barn.

(2) The Adoption of a Plan for the Poultry House. — Here

the decision made might take into consideration : —

A. The style of construction best adapted to the purpose for which
the structure was to be used.

B. The size of the poultry house necessary to the success of the project.

C. The fittings which would be most sanitary, most convenient, and
therefore on the whole most economieal.

(3) The Materials entering into the Construction of the Poul-
try House (involving kind, cost and availability ).— Such ques-
tions as these would naturally present themselves : —

A, Should the foundation be permanent, or temporary?

B. What sizes of dimension stock would be required ?

C. Should the flooring be earth, boards or cement?

D. Should the siding be rough, or planed; matched, battened, or pro-
tected by paper?

FE. Should the roofing be shingles, matched or battened boards, metal,
or some form of patented roofing of the rubberoid type?

F. Should the building be painted; and, if so, what would be the best-
wearing and most economical color and mixture? When should
the paint be applied?

2. The selection of birds, as determined by the purpose in
keeping them (whether for show stock or utility, breeding or
egg producing). This minor project in turn might be broken
up into a munber of subordinate minor projects necessary to its
successful completion, such as: —

(1) The Choice of Type and Breed. — Such questions as
these would naturally present themselves : —

A. Is a meat type of bird desired; and, if so, what is the best breed
or type? Is color of any importance?

B. Is the egg type desired; and, if so, what variety? Should the color
of the egg be a determining factor?

Cc. Among what may be termed general-purpose types, what may be
considered the best stock both for egg production and for final
finishing as table birds?

(2) The Choice of Breeding Stock.

A. When should breeding stock be selected and assembled for produc-
tion of the eggs required for hatching?

B. Should close attention be paid to breed shape?

C. To what extent and for what reasons should color and plumage be
determining factors?

(3) The Choice of Method of Beginning the Project.

A. Should the beginning be made with eggs; and, if so, where can the
eges of the breed and type desired be secured? What would
they cost, and when should they be ordered?

B. Would it be more economical to begin operations with incubator
chicks a few days old? If so, where could such chicks be had,

. when could they be had, and at what cost?

C. Should the beginning be made with full-grown birds? Where could

they be had, when, and at what cost?

3. The Feeding of the Poultry. — This minor project might
in turn involve a number of subordinate minor projects necessary
to its successful completion, such as: —

(1) The Selection of the Kinds of Feed. — Such questions as
these might naturally present themselves : —

A. When should hard grains be used?

B. What are the merits of ground grains, as distinguished from hard
grains?

C. Under what circumstances are mixtures and mashes desirable?
Should these be fed wet, or dry; and should they be home-
made, or bought on the market?

D. In what proportions should animal feed be provided, and in what
form or forms could it be most economically fed,—in beef
seraps, for example, or in green bone?

E. Should green feed be furnished? For winter feeding, what quan-
tity, if any, of cabbages and roots should be stored?

(2) Working out Problems of Feeding. — Such questions as
these might naturally present themselves : —

A. To what extent should there be a variety of feeds?

B. What relationship do feeding and exercise bear to each other?
Should dry grain be fed in the litter, or be fed in hoppers, or
both? What differences should there be, if any, between feed-
ing on free range and feeding in confinement?

C. What part should grit, oyster shells or charcoal form of the ration,
and for what reasons?

D. To what extent might feeds be grown at home, and to what extent
must they be bought on the market?

4. Other minor projects within the major project of ‘ Keep-
ing a Pen of Poultry,” which might also be analyzed into
numerous subordinate minor projects, each necessary to the suc-
cessful performance of the larger minor project and the major
project of which it forms a part, are: —

(1) The production of eggs with profit.
(2) The production of chicks by ineubator.
(3) The eare of chicks by artificial brooding.
The rearing of chicks.
(5) The handling of young stock.
The fattening and killing of poultry.
(7) The marketing of eggs and birds.

In hike manner, every major project similar to those hereto-
fore described, chosen by the school for purposes of instruction,
might be analyzed into the minor projects of which it was com-
posed, both in order that the various activities of the boy in the
successful accomplishment of the major project might be effec-
tively directed and supervised, and, as we shall see later on, in
order that the theories and principles related to the different
phases of his task might be given at the time when they would
be most effective from the practical and the educational points
of view.

Three factors must, it is believed, determine the measure of
success in any given plan of part-time work in agriculture:
(1) the farmer and his farm; (2) the school and its agricul-
tural supervisor; (3) the boy and his projects.

1. The farmer and his farm must constitute the fundamental

factor in the practical training of the boy. There could be little
effective work in the field of part-time training for the farm
without a reasonable spirit of co-operation on the part of the
parent.

There are at least three ways in which the parent could aid
in making the directed farm experience of the boy more educa-
tive: (1) in the use of the home plant; (2) in the use of the
home time of the pupil; (3) in giving the boy’s projects
economic importance.

(1) In the Use of the Home Plant. — One of the most es-
sential features of the co-operative part-time plan between home
and school is that the parent should be willing to devote from
time to time, in accordance with the plans of the supervisor or
teacher in charge of the work, a reasonable portion of his build-
ings, orchards, garden, pasture, forest and other fields, and of
his implements and machines, animals and materials, to the
directed training of the boy.

(2) In the use of the home time of the pupil the fullest value
of the agricultural course will come from the fullest possible
participation of the boy in the ordinary routine of farm work
as usually carried out by the parent; but the greatest benefit
of the school cannot be had without the use of a part of the
boy’s time, during the hours spent at home, for strictly school
purposes. The following are a few of many illustrations of
what might be the directed use of a part of the home time of the
pupils in the pursuit of projects suggested and directed by the

school : —

A. The boy might help with the milking throughout his course, where
the object was to get the cows milked as quickly as possible,
and where no records were kept. During certain months of at
least one year, the school should require whatever time might
be necessary for keeping an accurate record in pounds and
ounces of the yield of a part of the herd. This might be limited
to the weighing of milk from a single cow, and giving the cow
credit for what she produced.

B. It might be part of the boy’s business to assist in feeding the cows.
During part of his course, sufficient time should be given for
weighing the ration and charging at least one cow with what it
cost to keep her.

C. In the ordinary routine to which he had been accustomed in milking,
much or little attention might have been paid to cleanliness of
cows, utensils or the person and clothing of the milker. During
part of his time in school, the boy should be given whatever
time might be necessary for milking at least one cow and pre-
serving her milk under absolutely sanitary conditions, and for
sampling the milk for bacteriological tests.

D. In the ordinary cropping of the farm, much or little attention might
be paid to leguminous crops. But during one season at least,
facilities should be given the pupil for growing a patch of
moderate size of clover, and for observing the effect of intro-
ducing a large proportion of clover into the ration of the cow.

E. In the ordinary conduet of the farm, much or little attention might
be paid to the selection and testing of corn for seed. But
prior to planting, one season at least, the boy should be given
whatever time might be necessary for making germination tests
of the corn which it was proposed to plant.

F. Also, during one season, the boy should be given control of a portion
of a corn field for making an “ear to row” corn test; for
observing the difference in yield from different ears of corn, —
all the corn from one ear being planted in one row and all the
corn from another ear being planted in another row.

G. In the ordinary routine of the farm, it might be the business of the
boy to tend the poultry. During at least one year, he should
be given control of at least one pen of poultry, and facilities
for feeding a balanced ration and trap nesting individual birds
for comparison of productivity in laying.

H. It might be part of the usual work of the boy to help cultivate and
harvest the potato crop. During one season at least, he should
be given facilities for testing the value of the use of formalin
for the prevention of potato scab, and of the Bordeaux mixture
for protection against potato blight.

(3) In giving the boy’s projects economic importance, the
active aid of the parent would again be almost indispensable.

A. Keeping Accounts. — Whether or not the parent were in
the habit of keeping books, it would be vital to the success of the
school training that accurate accounts of outgo and income
should be kept with regard to certain home projects directed by
the school. Every boy should be taught business-like methods
for carrying on work. Modern business methods provide for
discovering exactly where money is made, and where it is lost,
at any stage or in any part of a given enterprise.

The boy should be given opportunity for testing, under his
home conditions, the value of methods which have proved effli-
cacious in business. ‘The school, to be effective, must teach
economic production in every phase of farm life for which it
gives preparation. Moreover, accounting is necessary to any
intelligent comparison of the effectiveness of the method advo-
cated by the school with that of the method previously followed.

B. Projects as Business Enterprises. — If the experiences
of the boy in the farming projects are to be educative to the
largest degree, it is believed that they should be conducted
strictly as business enterprises. Four methods of meeting the
problem of the cost and profit of these directed farming opera-
tions would be possible: (a) the parent might meet all the cost,
and give the boy all the profit; (b) the parent might meet all the
cost, and retain all the profit; (c) the parent might meet all the
cost, and share the profit with the boy; (d) the boy might re-
ceive the net profit, after the cost of the project had been paid.

From the educational point of view, the last method, by which
the boy, after conducting the given project as a business enter-
prise, should profit only to the extent to which his total re-
ceipts exceed the total cost of the enterprise, is believed to be in
every way preferable. By this method the boy would learn,
once for all, through his own experience, that there can be no
product without cost, and no profit without excess of receipts
over all expenditures. After such an experience, he would not
be likely to undertake a new enterprise without a serious at-
tempt to estimate accurately his probable profit. The boy would
be subjected to the prevailing economic conditions under which
the home farm must yield a profit, or a loss, at the end of each
year of work.

The method by which the boy became on a small scale a
farmer or a business man for himself would give the project
which he was carrying on a reality not otherwise attainable,
that must heighten measurably his interest in the work and in
the related study of the school, and must fix better than by any
other device the training which he was receiving.

Incidentally, it may be remarked that, as a matter of public
spirit, the citizens of the community might do much to further

the objects of the school by admitting the agricultural instructor
or supervisor and his students to their premises, for the exam-
ination of animals, machines and all out-door and in-door opera-
tions, and by explanation and discussion of their methods of
accounting and their improved farming processes. At another
point in this discussion the possible fields of usefulness to a
community of such an instructor or supervisor are pointed out.
Effective service on the part of the supervisor in the field of
helpful suggestion there mentioned could be rendered only
where there was a cordial attitude of co-operation on the part
of the people in the community who were desirous of either
the improvement of rural conditions in general or the better-
ment of their own farms.

2. The School and its Supervisor. — Whether part-time work
in agriculture were conducted under the auspices of a separate
agricultural school or of a separate department in a regular
high school, it is believed that it would require the services of
a trained and experienced agriculturist, who should devote his
entire time to teaching the principles and the best methods of
farming. It is believed, further, that largely through this in-
structor or supervisor of agriculture the school should: (1)
choose the projects to be undertaken by the boy; (2) direct his
work in the discharge of his projects; and (3) put him in pos-
session of the principles that relate to them.

(1) In the selection of the projects to be undertaken by the
boy, the instructor should take into consideration : —

What farming enterprises are profitable, or could be made so, in the
neighborhood.

The age of the boy.

The kinds of projects that would be feasible on the home farm.

The boy’s routine farm work at home.

The assistance that the father could afford to give in materials and
equipment.

The suitability of the project to the season of the year.

The projects and portions of projects that could best be carried out
at the school, and the best time on the program of the year for
these parts of the work to be done.

SSasy

The problem of the building of a poultry house by the boy
would be one of the possible minor projects, as before shown,
when the larger project of keeping a pen of poultry was under

consideration. This problem would naturally involve such
questions as these : —

A, Would the student have the necessary time?

B. Could the necessary materials be provided by the parent or student?

C. How much personal supervision of the actual work of construction
would be necessary or advisable on the part of the supervisor?

D. Would profitable poultry keeping on a given home farm require
the improved accommodations which the model poultry house,
built by the student, would furnish?

E. How far would conformity to the standards set up by the school
be necessary in determining what would be a model type of
poultry house for a given farm?

F. In what year of the school course should the building of a poultry
house be undertaken, in order that the training in poultry
keeping might be made most profitable?

G. What time of the year could the student build a poultry house to
best advantage?

The problem of conducting the building of the poultry house
as a strictly business enterprise is a project which would
naturally involve these questions : —

A, To what extent, if at all, could the boy be required to meet, or be
charged with, all cost save his own labor, and be credited with
a fair inventory valuation of the completed structure?

B. If the parent must advance the money or materials, what rate of
interest, if any, should be charged the boy?

C. What method of accounting should be adopted?

D. Should such records be kept as would enable the cost of this build-
ing to be compared with other similar buildings in the neighbor-
hood, as a check upon the business-like character of the boy’s
working out of this project?

(2) In directing the work of the boy in the discharge of his
projects, the school must of necessity, it is believed, undertake
the supervision of a portion of his work at home. Supervision
of part-time work in agriculture would not be an attempt on
the part of the school to interfere with the private management
of the farms of the parents. Supervision would, nevertheless,
be a continuous effort by the school to assist, advise and en-
courage the students in applying under home conditions, farm
methods which had proved successful elsewhere, and thus to
cause the practical training of the students to result in voca-
tional efficiency,

The instructor would not undertake to supervise all the de-
tails of the farm management on any given farm. Daily super-
vision would be impossible, because of the number of farms to
which the work of the school must be extended. Excessive
attention to minute details of farm work on the part of the
instructor might create needless friction between himself and
the parent, or might interfere materially with the supervision
of a proper amount of project work. It is, therefore, not con-
templated.

The school should not, it is believed, undertake to shift re-
sponsibility for the economic management of a farm from the
shoulders of the parent to the shoulders of the public.

The instructor would undertake to supervise certain selected
major projects and their related minor projects performed by
the boy at home. In a given year and season attention might,
for instance, be concentrated upon the project of keeping a pen
of poultry. Having given the study related to this project, the
instructor would supervise the application of that study. The
following examples illustrate what the character of such super-
vision might be: —

A. In the building of the poultry house, the actual work of putting
up the structure might, or might not, be supervised by the
instruetor. All other elements or phases of the enterprise,
as indicated by the outline, should be worked out by the
student under the direction of the school.

B. The course in farm shop work of the school might well undertake
to deal with the problem of the actual construction of the
poultry house.

C. It would be the duty of the instructor or supervisor to canvass
thoroughly with the student the relative merits of different
types and methods of poultry keeping, from the points of view
before indicated. His supervision might go the extent of
passing judgment on any proposed purchase of breeding stock,
chicks or eggs.

D. The supervisor would not personally direct the daily routine work
of feeding and watering poultry. His duties would consist of
directing the thorough study of possible feeds and mixtures,
their comparative cost and availability, and their suitability to
the age, condition and purpose of the student’s particular birds.
For such supervision personal knowledge by the instructor of
the exact home conditions would be necessary.

The supervision of the practical home work of the boy or girl
would naturally follow the settlement of such problems as
these : —

A. How could supervision and instruction be elosely correlated?

B. How should the time of the instructor and of the pupil be appor-
tioned between home and school duties?

C. What would be the maximum radius, from the school building as
a center, of effective supervision ?

D. What methods might be employed for securing and holding the
co-operation of the parent and the community?

E. By what means might satisfactory standards in the practical work
of the student be maintained?

Thus far we have discussed the duties and responsibilities of
the special instructor or supervisor of agriculture in the field of
direction of the boy’s projects on the home farm.

The instructor might undertake to give help to others than
those connected with his school. There are not wanting those
who believe that such an agricultural instructor attached to a
regular high school might render valuable service to the com-
munity in which he was employed, in what might be termed the
field of suggestion. Considering the previous training and ex-
perience required of this instructor, he should be a man well
prepared to be of wide assistance in a farming community as an
advisor in emergencies which called for special knowledge and
skill. If met by a problem with which he could not cope un-
aided, — and there might be many such problems, — he would
know the best men, books and bulletins for consultation in such
emergencies. Such problems might arise from attacks upon
crops by injurious insects or by fungous diseases.

The friendly advice which the agricultural instructor might
give need not mean a meddlesome attitude on his part. His
suggestions would not be given save when requested, or when
it was evident that they would be welcome.

The field of suggestion would naturally begin with farms
represented in the school by students. The instructor would of
course stand ready to give the parents any advice of which he
might be capable, or to get for them, or instruct them how to
get, any information which they might need or desire. With the

gradual extension of his knowledge to the other farms of the
community, he might be expected to stand ready in a similar
manner to be of assistance to the owners of those farms.

3. The boy and his projects form a natural connecting link
between the farmer and his farm, on one hand, and the school
and its instructor, on the other. At the farm, the pupil deals
with the practical aspects of his projects; and at the school, with
their scientific aspects. The foregoing discussion has been de-
voted chiefly to the practical aspects of the proposed project
method of instruction. The present section lays strongest em-
phasis on the related study essential for the successful carrying
out of a particular project.

Details of a Project Suitable for Third or Fourth Year In-
struction. — Earlier in this chapter a project was dealt with
which might, for the most part, be successfully carried out by
a first or second year student. Tor the present discussion a
project has been selected which would require considerable
maturity of age, strength and training for its successful accom-
plishment. It is true that simpler problems in potato growing
have been successfully carried out by elementary school pupils;
but even a glance over the elements which enter into the proj-
ect now to be outhned will show that problems altogether too
serious to be comprehended or undertaken by the younger pupil
are here involved.

It is to be understood, of course, that the following project is
but one of many which might be selected.

(1) Major Project. — It is assumed that the boy has chosen
for his major project the development of a method for increas-
ing the profit from the potato crop customarily grown on the
home farm. It is further assumed that 5 acres of potatoes are
generally grown; that this year the crop is to be grown on
clover sod; that the variety of potatoes to be grown has been
chosen by the father; and that the boy’s father is willing that
his boy shall have complete control of a given number of rows
ot the 5-acre field, and shall be furnished the necessary tools
and materials for his project.

(2) Minor projects necessary for carrying out the above
major project might then be as follows : —

A. Insuring the most abundant crop by: —
a. A Proper Seed Bed.— The related study here would involve
knowledge of : —
(a) Conditions of soil, air, texture, temperature and
moisture most favorable to the growth of the potato
plant, including methods of reducing an undesirable

’ water, of avoiding too great dilu-

amount of “ free’
tion of plant food, and of securing a desirable amount
of “film ” water.

(b) Methods of preparing the seed bed, including the com-
parative advantages of fall and spring plowing, and
the best treatment of the land in the spring after
plowing and prior to planting.

b. Proper Fertilizing.— The related study here would include
knowledge of : —

(a) Chemical composition of the potato plant, its osmotie
and digestive processes, and the quantity of available
fertilizing materials it is capable of assimilating.

(b) Complete fertilizers for the production of potatoes, in-
cluding analyses of standard fertilizers, and the
plant-food values for potato growing of chemicals and
mixtures offered for purchase.

(c) Comparative desirability of muriate and sulphate of
potash for producing a crop to be disposed of in an
immature state as new potatoes, or for producing a
crop of late potatoes to be disposed of for winter
use; and the extent to which the “ mealy ” character
of the mature crop should be the determining factor
in choosing between these two kinds of potash.

(d) Clover sod as a factor in determining the proportion of
nitrogen to be supplied.

(e) Best formula for a complete fertilizer for this particular
crop, taking into account the potato plant, the previous
crops and their fertilizer treatment in the system of
crop rotation followed on the home farm, the present
soil conditions and the purpose of the crop.

(f) Most liberal amount of fertilizer warranted for use in
growing this particular crop, in view of the known
condition of the land and the assimilative powers of
the potato plant; and the saving in cost by home mix-
ing of the supply to be used.

c. Using the Best Seed. —The related study here would include
knowledge of : —

(a) Botanical characteristics of the potato plant; the dif-
ference between a seed and a tuber; and potato im-
provement by various methods and conditions of
propagation, taking into account tendencies of the
potato plant to “variation” and to “mixing in the
hill.”

(b) Importance of planting “seed” selected in the field
from the best-yielding hills, rather than seed selected
from the bin merely by size of tubers.

(c) Advantage of using potatoes for planting which have
been properly stored, aud the effects of freezing and
sprouting in the cellar.

(a) Conditions under which it may be desirable to sprout
potatoes to be used for planting, in a warm, well-
lighted room, — the temperature, the time and the care
in handling required for such sprouting.

(e) Size of piece and number of eyes to the piece, as im-
portant factors in starting the crop and in the quan-
tity of its yield.

d. Proper Planting. —The related study here would inelude
knowledge of : —

(a) Botanical and chemical characteristics of the potato
plant, as to its feeding habits, the growth of the tubers,
and the effect on the tubers as food products of ex-
posure to the sun during their growth.

(b) Distances between rows, and between seed pieces in the
row.

(c) Depth of planting, in its relation to protection of the
tubers from the sun, shielding the crop from possible
rot-produecing bacteria and spores, and subsequent
cultivation, whether by the “level” or by the “hill”
method.

(d) Best time for planting, whether for “early” or for
“late” potatoes.

e. Proper Spraying.—The related study here would include
knowledge of : —

(a) Botanical characteristies of the potato plant, particularly
the relation of health and luxuriance of foliage to
tuber production.

(b) Insect enemies of the potato plant, and their entomo-
logical characteristics, such as their methods of propa-
gation and their feeding habits.

(d) Paris green: its chemical composition; its protective
action against the insect enemies of the potato plant;
dangers attendant upon its use; its possible combina-
tion with Bordeaux mixture; and the best formula,
method of preparation and periods for its application.

f. Proper Cultivation. — The related study here would include
knowledge of : —

(a) Physical characteristies of the soil, particularly the
capillary movement of water to the surface of the
soil, and exhaustion of soil moisture by evaporation.

(b) Surface conditions most favorable for receiving rain
water without washing, puddling or subsequent
baking.

(d) Comparative cost and advantages of “level” and “ hill”
cultivation, and reasons for the choice of the par-
ticular method to be followed in cultivating the present
crop.

B. Insuring the cleanest crop by: —

a. Dipping the “seed” potatoes in a formalin solution. The re-
lated study here would involve knowledge of: —

(a) Plant parasites which produce “scabby” potatoes, and
the biological conditions favorable and antagonistic
to their growth.

(b) Formalin solution: its chemical constitution; its chemi-
eal action on these damaging potato parasites; and
the proper formula and method for its use in pro-
tecting the potato erop.

b. Substitution of chemical fertilizers for barnyard manure. The
related study here would involve knowledge of : —

(a) Dangers of infection from the use of barnyard manure.

(b) Dangers of infection, if any, from the use of chemical
fertilizers.

C. Insuring the soundest crop by spraying the potato plants with
Bordeaux mixture. The related study here would involve
knowledge of : —

a. Bacterial and fungous diseases to which the potato plant is
subject; evidences of their presence; and whether or not
they are preventable.

b. Bordeaux mixture: its chemical composition; its protective
action against potato-plant diseases; and the best formula,
method of preparation and periods of application for its
use,

D. Other minor projects would inelude the most profitable means and
methods of harvesting, storing and marketing the crop. And
other study related to these projects would include knowledge
of potato implements and machines and their use; the compara-
tive advantages of field pit and cellar for storage; principles
and means of ventilation, and the temperature at which potatoes
should be kept; near and more distant markets, and comparative
transportation cost; prices and the probable tendency of prices,
in view of the press and government reports of the potato crop
for the State, New England, the country and the world.

General Observations on Related Study. — The study related
to the work of carrying out this potato project embraces, there-
fore, important matter from several sciences, including botany,
chemistry, physics, entomology, bacteriology and plant pathol-
ogy. or the calculations, mathematics would be necessary ; for
keeping the accounts, bookkeeping would be required ; for correct
correspondence, there should be training in business English;
consideration of transportation, markets and world production
would involve knowledge of commercial and agricultural geog-
raphy.

The project method of instruction on the side of related study,
thus, it will be evident, must insure that the boy, in carrying out
his projects, shall pass through a thorough-going educational
process.

Good Citizenship. —It is proposed, furthermore, that the
division of time, in carrying out the school and home farm
co-operative method of training, shall be about as follows: for
the execution of the projects, including work during vacations
and other out-of-school hours, 50 per cent.; and for the related
study, 50 per cent. The remaining 20 per cent. of the time of
the boy is expected to be used for general culture and good citi-
zenship instruction, wherein systematic courses may be provided
in such subjects as English, history, civics, current events, math-
ematics and science.

Conclusion. — It is believed that the vocational education for
farming proposed in this report, and embodying the project and
part-time work method outlined in the present chapter, will

justify itself from every reasonable point of view, and that the
system of agricultural schools which this report recommends
will prove to possess undeniable merit as training schools, both
for farming as a definite calling, and for intelligent and vigorous
participation in the community life of the Commonwealth.

VI.

THE PROBLEM OF SECURING COMPETENT INSTRUCTORS
FOR A SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS
IN MASSACHUSETTS.

{t would seem evident from the preceding discussion of the
duties and the opportunities of the instructor in agriculture
that he is probably the most important factor in the training of
the youth for productive and profitable farming.

Whether he be employed in a separate agricultural school
or as an expert in charge of an agricultural department in a
regular high school, the special instructor or supervisor in agri-
cultural education should bring to the work certain qualifications
as to preparation, experience and personality.

He should be a Graduate of an Agricultural College. — His
preparation should include graduation from an agricultural
college or its equivalent. He should be familiar with and keep
in touch with the officers and the work of the Massachusetts
Agricultural College and Experiment Station; and he should
keep in touch with the experiment stations in other States
where work is being done under conditions similar to those in
Massachusetts.

He should be familiar with the work of the United States
Department of Agriculture, so far as it is applicable to Mas-
sachusetts. He should be capable of keeping in touch with new
literature in pamphlet, periodical and book form, as it is issued,
and to the extent that it may be applicable to his locality. He
should be familar with the work of organizations concerned
with rural progress in Massachusetts, and capable of heartily
co-operating with their officers.

His Hxperience. — Preferably, such a person undertaking
to prepare for agricultural teaching in this Commonwealth
should have been reared on a Massachusetts farm, or on a farm
where the agricultural operations would yield experience of
value for work in this State. He should be a master of farming
as a handicraft, and amply able to demonstrate the things which
he undertook to teach; and he should be familiar with, and

be able to demonstrate the use of, the kinds of farm machinery
which can be economically used on a Massachusetts farm.

His Personality. — Since he must teach, such an instructor
or supervisor must be effective in discipline; that is to say,
in the handling of boys and girls. He must be prepared to meet
people in his community pleasantly, and establish agreeable
working relations with them. He must be prepared to maintain
harmonious relations between his department and the other
departments of the school, and be amenable to the authority of
the officers responsible for the school which he serves.

The duties of such a teacher of agriculture, attached to
either a separate agricultural school or an agricultural depart-
ment in a regular high school, should in general be those which
were indicated in the foregoing discussion of the activities in
the field of part-time work in agriculture which he is to direct.

His school year might provide, at the discretion of the school
authorities, for service during the spring, summer and fall
months, giving him a vacation during the winter months; rather
than for service during the fall, winter and spring, with summer
months for vacation purposes. Such a program would insure
his services throughout the growing and harvesting seasons.

His absence during winter months would not seriously disturb
the curriculum of the school; on the contrary, it would make
room for the teaching of related subjects, including manual
training projects related to the farm, by other members of the
staff to the lower classes, and might enable the higher classes
to take winter short courses at the Agricultural College. Such
a program would enable him to attend winter courses, and thus
keep in touch with progress in agricultural science, and become
better acquainted with men engaged in research and experi-
mental work.

The appointment and tenure of such a supervisor should be
under the control of the local authorities, but subject to the
approval of the State Board. Where the supervisor is to serve a
separate agricultural school, as at present constituted and admin-
istered under the Massachusetts statutes, or an agricultural de-
partment in a regular high school, since his salary in either
case is to be paid in part by the local community and in part by
the State, it would probably be advisable that he should be nom-

inated by the local authorities and approved by the Board of
Edueation; and in ease of dismissal for cause, it would prob-
ably be best for such a dismissal to be approved by the Board.

Ordinarily, the yearly term of service for such a supervisor
should be from the first day of April of any given year to the
first day of April of the succeeding year. Dismissal for flagrant
offense should, of course, be immediate and without notice.

The salary of such a supervisor is an important consideration.
Experience seems to show that, in order to command the services
of a man having the technical training, practical experience and
personality called for in the above discussion of the necessary
qualifications of a successful supervisor, salaries ranging from
$1,000 upwards must be paid.

In Ontario, where salaries for teachers and specialists of every
type are on the whole less than in the States, six supervisors,
with advisory and teaching duties, were engaged at the begin-
ning of a co-operative scheme between the governmental agencies
for agricultural betterment and the local school authorities.
These supervisors were paid at the outset, $1,000 per year.

The Problem of Necessary Salaries is an Economic One at
Bottom. — In order to attract to the work a supervisor of the
type herein described, it will be necessary to make the compensa-
tion which he is to receive as good as, or better than, that which
is offered to him in competing lines of work.

By competing lines of work are meant occupations to which
his interests, his talents and his preparation might attract him.
The following positions at least He within the possibilities of
the desirable graduate of an agricultural college, and therefore
constitute competing lines of work: agricultural management
work (for others or for himself) ; agricultural editorial work;
agricultural commercial work; agricultural government work;
agricultural research work; agricultural extension work; agri-
cultural teaching in colleges; agricultural teaching in high
schools; agricultural teaching in agricultural schools; agricul-
tural teaching in departments in regular high schools; assistant-
ships where valuable experience under highly specialized super-
vision is to be had.

In a very exhaustive study of the preparation and salaries of
teachers giving instruction in agriculture in high schools, Mr.

C. H. Robison finds that the prevailing rate of pay received
by desirable students in agricultural colleges immediately after
graduation is $1,200."

Such a supervisor must at the present time command a salary
at least as high as, if not higher than, the average male teacher
in ordinary high school work. Graduates of classical colleges
are much more abundant and available for teaching in second-
ary schools than are men qualified to teach agriculture.

The demands upon the teacher who is to serve as a supervisor
of part-time agricultural work are so much more exacting than
the demands upon the instructor in old-line training, that men
possessing the requisite qualifications of personality and execu-
tive ability are at a premium.”

The salaries now paid to special teachers of agriculture of
secondary grade are likewise significant. Mr. Robison presents
a table (No. 41) giving the salaries of 33 agriculturists en-
gaging in school work in the past two years. Of these, the first
10 employed as assistants received less than $850; 23 received
$900 or more; 21 more than $1,000; and 16 more than $1,200.

The salaries now commanded by teachers giving special in-
struction in agriculture in public high schools and other public
secondary schools would seem to indicate that the salary of the
supervisor described herein must be not less than $1,000, and
must probably be more than that amount per annum, if com-
petent men are to be secured for the work.

1 In a thesis prepared for a doctor’s degree at Columbia University, Mr. Robison gives a
list of 179 men graduating from agricultural colleges in the school year 1907-08. This list
shows that the salaries of over four-fifths of these men were rather evenly scattered between
$750 and $1,200. The 24 higher-degree men received an average of $1,208.33, the prevailing
rate being $1,200. The general average of salaries for the 1907 group was $947.50, and for the
1908 group $921.50. The lowest salary received was $450, and the highest $1,700.

The significance of the above statistics lies in these three considerations: (1) that the salaries
tabulated were commanded practically on graduation day, and hence do not represent the
added compensation which efficiency born of experience brings; (2) that the salaries tabulated
include, possibly to an extent of more than a majority of the cases, the earnings after gradua-
tion of men not capable of acting as supervisors of agricultural training; (3) that the salaries
were not confined to men entering educational work.

2 The report of the National Educational Association, through its committee on salaries,
tenures and pensions of public school teachers in the United States (1905), gives the average
annual salary of male teachers other than principals in the secondary schools of Massachusetts
outside of Boston as $1,269; of male teachers and principals, $1,470; of male principals,
$2,261.

VET,

AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENTS IN PUBLIC HIGH
SCHOOLS THE PRINCIPAL PRESENT NEED
IN MASSACHUSETTS AGRICUL-
TURAL EDUCATION.

The foregoing chapters of this report have been devoted
largely to a description of various features of the work of the
separate agricultural school and of the agricultural department
in the publi¢ high school, as being the two types of training most
desirable for a system of agricultural education in this State. It
is the purpose of the present chapter to discuss the probable part
which each may be made to play in such a system, and the special
need of the agricultural department.

To-day in Massachusetts there are three kinds of agricultural
education: one for adults; another for children; and a third for
pupils of high school age.

Adult Agricultural Education. — Agricultural edueation suit-
able for adults was the first to receive attention, and has been
most elaborately developed. It now includes publie exhibitions,
lectures and demonstrations ; books, periodicals and papers; field
meetings held on farms, movable schools and better-farming
trains ; correspondence instruction and college courses. Among
the most active agents in promoting this work for adults are the
State Board of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Agricultural
College.

Elementary Agricultural Hducation. — The place of agricul-
ture in the education of children is discussed in chapter XL,
where it is shown that promising beginnings have already been
made in teaching elementary school children certain rudiments
of agricultural fact and practice. The State normal schools
and interested superintendents of schools have been the most
active agents in this work. Valuable assistance has been given
by the Massachusetts Agricultural College.

Secondary Agricultural Education. — Agricultural education
suitable for pupils of high school age is found in three forms:

the private school, of which the Mount Hermon School for
Boys, with its elective courses in agriculture, is the most prom-
inent example; the public high school, with some agricultural
instruction, of which there are said now to be twelve examples
in this State; and the State-aided agricultural school of strictly
vocational character, of which there are now two examples, —
the Smith’s Agricultural School at Northampton, and the Mon-
tague Agricultural School at Montague.

The principal present need, it is believed, is legislative provi-
sion of State aid for the establishment and maintenance, in exist-
ing high schools, of thorough-going vocational departments for
the preparation of boys, and perhaps some girls, for Massachu-
setts farming. In other chapters this report gives evidence that
farming in this State offers a good future to those who have been
properly trained for engaging in it, and outlines a method for
making agricultural education for those above fourteen years of
age vocationally eftective.

The present law provides State aid for independent agri-
cultural schools. This provision should be continued. But it
is believed that this legislation is not adequate for meeting the
immediate requirements of the State as a whole.

Only One Rural School has become an Agricultural School. —
Under the present law, only one rural school has been reor-
ganized, and converted into an agricultural school, — the school
at Montague.

But One School built, and that by Bequest. — Moreover, but
one new agricultural school has been established, — the school
at Northampton. Without the Oliver Smith bequest, it is
perfectly evident, to those who know the situation, that the
city of Northampton would not now have that institution.

The school has drawn its students from sixteen towns outside
of Northampton, as well as from the city itself. It is in
reality a school for a considerable district, rather than for a
single city.

In the natural course of events, Northampton, or any other
city with a considerable industrial development, would see it-
self well equipped for industrial training before it would, or
perhaps could, give a thought toward the establishment of an

agricultural school for the benefit of its outlying and more or
less scattered farming population.

Sta Agricultural Schools might be warranted. — There would
undoubtedly be ample need of the ultimate establishment in this
State of five or six independent agricultural schools.

Districts or Benefactors might build them. — If the burden
of establishing such separate agricultural schools is too great to
be assumed single-handed by most towns, it is to be hoped that
private philanthropy, seeing the need, may be induced to supple-
ment limited public resources.

A group of towns may join in a district and find the under-
taking quite within its grasp. In Essex County there is what
appears to be a well-developed movement for the immediate
establishment of such a school. By degrees the requisite number
of separate schools for meeting the needs of the training such
schools could so admirably give, may be secured.

The State should help maintain; it should not help construct
or equip. —-It is plainly the established policy of the State to

aid in maintaining industrial and agricultural schools, but not

in their construction or equipment. The State must not under-
take more than it can carry out; and it is already evident that
at no distant date the share of the State in meeting the cost of
even one-half of the maintenance charges of vocational education
will heavily tax its current resources.

Present Need of Agricultural Departments, therefore, the
More Urgent. — Since the demand for vocational agricultural
training of secondary grade is pressing, and the establishment of
agricultural schools is likely to be long delayed, the need for
agricultural departments is seen to be the more urgent.

Fifty Departments for the Cost of Ten Schools. — The cost of
establishing a vocational agricultural department in a regular
high school would be comparatively slight, — not a tithe of the
cost of constructing and equipping an independent agricultural
school. Moreover, fully fifty departments could be maintained
for about what it would cost to maintain five large, well-equipped
and effective agricultural schools. The provision of agricultural
departments strongly commends itself, therefore, on the grounds
of economy.

Departments would reach the Greatest Number. — An agri-
cultural department close at hand, which permitted the boy to
live at home and help with the farm work morning and night
and on Saturdays, would be most likely to appeal to parents who
were in modest circumstances. Practically all parents, however
well-to-do or however needy they may be, are rightly reluctant
to have their children leave home at fourteen, or even at sixteen
or seventeen vears of age.

Many agricultural departments widely distributed through
the State would induce the attendance of the largest number of
pupils, and thus provide a system of agricultural education
suited to the needs of the greatest number of farm homes.

Departments would demonstrate. — Surrounded by farms,
vocational agricultural departments in high schools would at
once enlist the motor instincts and activities of the boys from
these farms in the carrying out, simultaneously with their school
instruction and as a vital part of it, of practical farming proj-
ects on their own premises.

The best methods would be told and shown. And most boys,
as well as most men, in agriculture as in all other productive
pursuits, make their best progress by being told and shown, man
to man, what to do, and why and when and how to do it.

General Schooling not Hnough.— Even in Massachusetts,
where the school-going habit has been developed among the
people at large to at least as favorable proportions as in most
parts of the world, school instruction has had almost no direct
bearing on the probable life work of a great number of boys
and girls; and to-day, except in very few instances, it yields no
practical knowledge or skill to those boys whose severest need
is education for efficiency in the work and affairs of modern
farming.

Books and Bulletins are not Enough. — How many of the
rank and file of busy farmers have had the time, the opportunity
or the inclination for learning the alphabet of agricultural
science, — that difficult alphabet, in which the most valuable
bulletins and treatises on modern agriculture are written? The
higher the aspirations of the men of agricultural knowledge, and
the more commendable their accomplishments in the conquest of

agricultural science, the more difficult of comprehension do their
published works become in the hands of the man hard pressed
by the daily affairs of farming.

The need of the hour is the need of the teacher who can sim-
plify language, and tell the boys who are to be farmers in a
given town or district the practical bearing of the best research
in agriculture on their problems; and who can show the boys,
on their own farms and in the laboratory demonstrations at the
school, the best methods which are applicable to Massachusetts
conditions. It is to meet this need that a system of agricultural
departments is proposed in this report.

The Farm is not Enough. — Ut has been said that ‘‘ The worst
thing about farming in New England is that almost any kind of
farmer can get a living on almost any kind of farm.” Produc-
tive farming — the farming for which additional vocational
training is here proposed — is not eking out from the land the
nakedest necessities of life. Productive farming is farming for
the community, not merely for the individual; it is economic
farming, and as such contemplates profit in proportion to the
service it renders the community, — in proportion to the quan-
tity and the quality of the commodities put upon the market.
Such farming demands the highest operative skill, the keenest
scientific insight and the broadest outlook over the wants and the
welfare of the community. Many men on Massachusetts farms
to-day are doing exactly this kind of productive farming. They
have built up their ability through long years of experience.
They would be the best possible schoolmasters for their sons in
this skillful work, this scientific insight and this breadth of
outlook.

But, just as the lawyer who must practice law is generally
unwilling to teach it, so the productive farmer, who must meet
the pressing demands of economic agricultural operations, and
who in most cases must be at once the skilled operative, the
scientific observer and the capable business manager, cannot
stop to teach his boy the many things he ought to be taught in
the years following his fourteenth birthday.

If this is true of the farmer of exceptional ability, it is even
more evident among farmers in general throughout the Com-

ral

monwealth. There is no reflection in this observation on the
“old stock” or on the immigrant. The statement is put for-
ward as a matter of fact, and shows a condition which has
erown, and must continue more and more to grow, out of the
exigencies of modern economic agriculture.

If the office alone is not enough as a training school for
modern commerce, it becomes increasingly evident that, while
the farm must have a necessary part in agricultural education,
as is shown in chapters LY. and V. of this report, it is not enough
for the training of the prospective productive farmer. The
agricultural departments would undertake to render a service
to productive farming like that rendered the world of business
by the public school department of commerce.

Open Doors of Opportunity. — Mr. D. J. Crosby, specialist
in agricultural education of the Office of Experiment Stations,
Washington, D. C., has written that he hopes to see secondary
agricultural education throughout the country “ Open at both
ends,” — open at the beginning, so that the farm boy can enter;
and open at the end, so that those farm boys who desire to go
on to higher agricultural training shall be able to do so.

The agricultural departments, as shown in another chapter
of this report, would admit any farm boy who had reached his
fourteenth birthday, without regard to whether or not he could
pass entrance examinations for admission to high school, pro-
vided he could demonstrate his ability to profit from the agri-
cultural instruction offered. This would open the door for the
boy who might not be “ bookish,” but who might be capable of
making excellent progress in applied science as worked out by
the project, or part-time, method proposed in chapter V. of
this report.

Fuller opportunity, at the same time, would be afforded
the boy who might be both “ bookish” and “ practical,” for
advancing in both agricultural and academic training, As
stated in chapter V., 20 per cent. of the boy’s time would be
definitely reserved for broadly cultural education. If a boy
who was training for farming valued graduation from an even
more strongly cultural course, one that perhaps even included
Latin or Greek, and if he were able to cover the ground re

quired for such graduation without detriment to the vocational
training in his agricultural course, he, too, should find wide open
before him a door of opportunity commensurate with his ambi-
tion and his natural powers.

More and inore, agricultural science is bound to be recognized
in units of credit for meeting college entrance requirements ;
certainly for meeting the requirements for admission to col-
leges of agriculture.

It must be evident, in short, that the agricultural departments
in high schools herein proposed would throw open to boys from
the farms not limited opportunities only, but opportunities for
the most advanced agricultural education of which they might
be capable and to which they might aspire. The fact that firm
footing for their feet would be found at the outset through the
immediate application of their science instruction in their home
farm projects, would certainly be no detriment.

Avoidance of Undue Delay. — The establishment of agri-
cultural departments in existing high schools could not be aec-
complished over night. Their suecess would depend upon
picked men for teachers; and the selection of such men, or their
training, would require time and attention. Some time would
be required, also, for enabling the local advisory committee in
consultation with the State authorities to outline the course
of training best suited to mect the needs of the farm boys in
any given locality. Certain special agricultural class-room
facilities and equipment would require some time for prepara-
tion.

But the time necessary for the establishment of such depart-
ments would be comparatively brief. In one, two or three
years it should be possible to have a reasonable number of such
departments actively at work, and reaching most of the farm
boys in this State who need this form of agricultural education.

Conclusion. — Chief stress in this chapter has been laid on
the need of agricultural departments in existing high schools,
and the service they might be expected to render. It is recog-
nized that a new and untried method of instruction is proposed
in this report. There have been certain approximations to both
the separate agricultural school and the agricultural department

in a high school, as here defined and discussed; but nowhere
has there been the definite and studied employment of the pro}-
ect and part-time method of training here contemplated for use
in both the agricultural school and the agricultural department.

While, therefore, it is believed that the system of agricultural
schools recommended in this report will prove to be an impor-
tant contribution to the progress of education in this Common-
wealth, it is believed, also, that the experimental character of
the proposed system, particularly in matters relating to the agri-
cultural department, should be distinctly recognized. To this
end, accordingly, the appropriation for aiding such departments
has been restricted to $10,000 a year,
a small number of such departments.

Intense interest in the proposed system exists among farmers,
business men and educators throughout the State with whom it
has been discussed. Under the supervision of the Board of Edu-
eation, the work could be subjected to the closest scrutiny, and

a sum sufficient to start

would be undertaken with corresponding care. Departments
need not be established excepting where conditions for their suc-
cessful development were believed to exist. Every possible as-
sistance could be given those immediately responsible for putting
into effect the method here proposed. If the results proved to
be disappointing, the appropriation for departments should be
discontinued. If the results here anticipated should be realized,
the annual appropriation could be increased and the system
further extended whenever such action might be considered
necessary or desirable.

VIII.

POSSIBLE LOCATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS OR
DEPARTMENTS.

Where should the schools and departments in a system of agri-
cultural education for Massachusetts be established ? .

Previously in this report it has been stated that the establish-
ment of five, or possibly six, separate agricultural schools might
be warranted in Massachusetts. These might well be located at
the most easily accessible points in each of six, readily sep-
arable, divisions of the State which furnish the home markets
for Massachusetts agricultural products.

That there are six such divisions has been shown by Secre-
tary Ellsworth in his forthcoming pamphlet, entitled ‘‘ Massa-
chusetts, her Agricultural Resources, Advantages and Oppor-
tunities,” to which reference has been made in chapter II. His
preliminary statement concerning these divisions is as fol-
lows: —

The home markets for Massachusetts farm products are confined prin-
cipally to the 33 cities. These cities, all containing more than 13,000
people, represent almost two-thirds of the total population of the State.
The inhabitants thereof are wholly dependent upon the farmer for sus-
tenance. The cities of the State lie in six groups, the locations of
which, as previously intimated, were determined largely by the existence
of special industrial and commercial facilities.

1. Desirable Locations for Agricultural Schools. — If the six
agricultural market divisions of the State were to be followed,
schools might be located in the divisions described by Secretary
Elsworth, as below shown, and for reasons based on the investi-
gations leading to this report below given.

(1) “ The most western group,” says Secretary Ellsworth, “ is
that comprising the cities of Pittsfield and North Adams, hav-
ing a combined population of 45,000. These markets get all
their dairy products and fruits and vegetables in season from
producers of northern Berkshire.”

Pittsfield promises to be an excellent center, and the time
seems opportune for the establishment there of a separate

agricultural school. The formation of an agricultural fair asso-
ciation is under consideration by the Pittsfield Board of Trade,
the local Grange and influential citizens. It has been suggested
that the two projects might be worked out together. Some of
the fair buildings, which otherwise would be unoccupied fully
eleven months of the year, might be used for the school. Some
of the school equipment and operations might contribute features
of very great value for carrying out the educational purposes
which the annual fairs would be intended to serve.

Pittsfield is a trade and transportation center for the towns
of Lanesborough, Dalton, Lenox, Lee, Cheshire, Berkshire and
Hinsdale. This group of towns, with Pittsfield, has a total
population estimated at 50,000. The population is said to be
increasing at a rapid rate, and to be far outstripping the agri-
cultural development of that section of the State.

(2) “The second group,” as described by Secretary Ellsworth,
“comprises Northampton, Holyoke, Chicopee and Springfield.
These cities lie in the lower Connecticut River valley. The last
three named are in Hampden County, and are the most popu-
lous. The total population is 145,500. This market group
draws heavily upon the productivity of the Connecticut valley
for 30 miles of its length and from the hills on the east and on
the west. The prosperous market gardeners close to the city
limits attest to the excellent marketing advantages of this
region.”

The Connecticut Valley now supplied. — The Smith’s Agri-
cultural School and Northampton School of Industries now in
operation at Northampton, and previously referred to in this re-
port, is equipped for serving a large area in the Connecticut
valley and on the neighboring hills. Students from 16 towns
have been enrolled for work in this school, and with but few
exceptions have been able to reside at home, — due to the excel-
lence of Northampton as a transportation center.

(3) “A third group” is that made up, according to the analy-
sis of Secretary Ellsworth, ‘“ of Worcester, Fitchburg and Marl-
borough. -The former is by several thousands the largest city,
and no mean percentage of its people are partially self-sustain-
ing. The combined population is 163,500. The supply for these
markets comes mostly from the southern and eastern parts of

Worcester County. Mailroads enter the cities of this group
from twelve diiferent directions direct from the producing sec-
tions.”

Worcester has been discussed separately in chapter IX. of
this report as a most desirable center for an agricultural school.
The resources of the city are rich, the agricultural production
of its outlying sections is large, the population conditions are
adequate, its transportation facilities are excellent, and the
enterprise of its local agricultural and horticultural organiza-
tions is noteworthy. Few communities could offer conditions
more promising for the successful establishment and mainte-
nance of such a school than those which would be found in
Worcester.

(4) “Another group of cities,” indicated by Secretary Ells-
worth, “ le along the Merrimac River in nothern Essex County.
Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill and Newburyport make up this
group, and afford markets for that section of the State. The
railroads are numerous, but do not enter into the movement of
produce to these markets to any extent, most of it being drawn
over the excellent macadam roads with which this section is
admirably supplied. Gloucester, on Cape Ann, is a city of
more than 25,000 people, which requires its portion of soil
products. It is known best as a port and market for the fishing
industry.” .

In Essex County several locations have been suggested, and
it appears that public sentiment has been thoroughly aroused,
by the Associated Boards of Trade and other organizations
throughout the entire county, in favor of the early establish-
ment of one agricultural school, and ultimately of at least two
such schools.

A. Danvers has been suggested as a center for such a school.
The section about Danvers may be described as pre-eminently
devoted to market gardening. The district served might well
include Lynn, Marblehead, Salem, Peabody, Beverly and Dan-
vers itself. It is urged that day students living at home could
attend school at this center from points as far north as Tops-
field, Boxford, North Andover and even Haverhill, more cheaply
than they could board, and have margins of time for testing
daily at home the teachings of the school.

B. The Merrimac valley, it has been urged, would furnish a
desirable center. Agriculture in the Merrimac valley section
is rich and varied. It embraces general farming; fruit grow-
ing, including peaches and strawberries; and market gardening.
The district served might well include Andover, North Andover.
Boxford, Georgetown, Groveland, Lawrence, Methuen and
Haverhill. Towns even as distant as Danvers, Topsfield, New-
buryport and Salisbury would not, it is believed, be too far
away for the attendance of day students.

CO. Topsfield also has been suggested as a center, owing to
the gift of a valuable farm in that town to the Essex Agricul-
tural Society for educational purposes. This farm would offer
admirable field facilities for purposes of instruction. The soil,
especially in its diversified topographical contours, is typical
of the farming land in the immediately surrounding section.

Against this point as a center for an agricultural school has
been urged difficulty of access. Topsfield has no electric car
service, and is crossed by but a single steam railway line. It
might be that an enrollment of day students could not be as-
sured sufficient to warrant its selection as a center.

D. Beverly, or some other spot on the North Shore, has been
suggested as a center. It has been urged that an agricultural
school might be established and equipped by subscriptions from
wealthy residents, and that a district for its maintenance might
well be made up of Beverly, Wenham, Hamilton, Essex, Man-
chester, Gloucester, Rockport and perhaps Ipswich. Such a
school, it is urged, should provide instruction in general farm-
ing, and should also give particular attention to landscape
gardening.

It is said that the North Shore country seats demand much
skilled agricultural and horticultural work of all kinds, and that
for meeting this demand the establishment and maintenance by
the means above named of a somewhat specialized agricultural
school would be warranted. There appears to be no little merit
in this proposal, and the transportation conveniences would make
a school in this locality accessible to a large district.

(5) “ The cities of the fifth group,” as described by Secretary
Ellsworth, “ are rather widely separated, but, as they are respon-
sible for considerable agricultural activity of a particular sec-

tion, they may be taken as constituting a market for that section.
These cities are Brockton in northwestern Plymouth, Taunton,
Fall River and New Bedford in Bristol, and Woonsocket, Paw-
tucket, Central Falls and Providence in the State of Rhode
Island. The combined population of these cities in 1905 was
500,000, which was nearly as great as that of Boston.

“This, however, cannot be taken as a true measure of the
market for Massachusetts farmers of this section, since the
Rhode Island markets get the larger portion of their produce
from Rhode Island soil. The Massachusetts cities named above
have a population nearly equal to the Rhode Island cities, and,
with the exception, perhaps, of Fall River, get all their native
food stuffs from Massachusetts farms. Transportation facilities
are excellent, no less than thirty lines of railroads entering the
cities of the group. Probably most of the garden truck is taken
to market over the highways.”

The Faunce Demonstration Farm at Sandwich might serve
as a nucleus for a separate agricultural school for the Cape Cod
section. The real estate of the Faunce Demonstration Farm,
when bequeathed in 1909 for its present use, consisted of two
houses, a barn, a greenhouse, about 8 acres of cleared land, with
50 acres of woodland adjoining and other woodland at a dis-
tance. With this real estate there also was received a fund of
about $20,000. The whole property was left as a memorial to
Dr. Robert H. Faunce, who had died suddenly the year before,
by his mother, in the hands of four of her personal friends as
trustees, with wide discretionary powers, but with her wish well
understood that the estate was to be used to encourage Cape Cod
agriculture. Demonstration work in fruit and vegetable grow-
ing and in poultry farming has been energetically undertaken.
This establishment was described very fully by the “ Boston
Herald” of Nov. 27, 1910, in an illustrated article, entitled
“The Farm without Frills.”

The conditions at Sandwich are so closely typical of the Cape
as a whole, and transportation facilities are such, that Sandwich
naturally suggests itself as a desirable center for an agricultural
school. Agricultural production in that section has been sorely
neglected, products which might well be grown at home being
brought in for supplying local needs from the Boston markets.

fs,

The importance of Sandwich as a center is expected to be greatly
enhanced by the completion of the new Cape Cod Canal.

The people of the community, particularly the school boys,
have responded to the influence of the Faunce Demonstration
Farm. The superintendent of the farm, as this report is being
written, is instructing special classes of high school students
who are desirous of the training this farm and its manager are
prepared to provide.

(6) “The siath group,’ discussion of which Secretary Ells-
worth deferred until the last, because of its magnitude, is that
which, he says, “‘ for present purposes may be called the Boston
market. Fifteen cities and about as many large towns may be
included in this group. It has its center at Faneuil Hall, and
radiates for 10 miles north, south and west. Within the cireum-
ference of this territory there dwell more than one-third of all
the people in the Commonwealth. Well may Boston be termed
‘the Hub; it is truly the center of this enormous market.”

The Suburbs of Boston. — It is well known that the green-
house and market-garden interests in the vicinity of Boston have
reached enormous development, and it has been suggested that
a special school for training producers of market-garden and
ereenhouse crops might well be established in one of the suburbs
of this city.

Such a school might materially differ in its course of study
from the other agricultural schools, and form a very important
part of a system of agricultural education for the State. Stu-
dents who desired to specialize in these branches of agricultural
production might, at the end of the first two or three years in
any of the other agricultural schools or agricultural departments,
possible locations for which are hereafter discussed, be trans-
ferred to this school for a one-year or two-years finishing course ;
that is to say, such a school might well be organized for provid-
ing a short course of highly specialized instruction for boys of
sixteen or more years of age.

2. Possible Locations for Agricultural Departments in Exist-
ing High Schools. — Local conditions should be strong factors
in determining whether or not the establishment of an agricul-
tural department would be advisable at any given point.

There is throughout the State a very general excellence of

transportation facilities. When, for example, possible locations
for the proposed Massachusetts College centers were being se-
lected, it was found that 30 such centers could be so placed that
92 per cent. of the school population of the State would live
within the range of a five-cent fare by steam or trolley from
these centers, and that six per cent. more would live within the
range of a ten-cent fare. Transportation facilities are likely to
be found favorable at most points which might be suggested.

In choosing locations for agricultural departments in high
schools, some account should undoubtedly be taken of the tend-
ency of agriculture to develop more strongly with reference to
local market demands than with reference to any local peculiar-
ities of soil or traditional production, —a tendency which has
been referred to by Secretary Ellsworth. Strong or distinctive
home-market centers for agricultural products might well, as in
the cases of the agricultural schools, furnish the most desirable
locations for agricultural departments.

Following are centers — but not always market centers —
which have been suggested as likely to be found desirable for
the location of vocational agricultural departments in existing
high schools : —

(1) Great Barrington might be found desirable as a center,
so far as the farming interests and transportation facilities are
concerned. Farmers conversant with Great Barrington condi-
tions have estimated that an annual enrollment of 20 farm boys
could be assured, if such a department should be established,
with an ultimate enrollment of probably not fewer than 50.
The surrounding towns have no manufacturing, but contain
many estates of summer residents and many typical western
Massachusetts farms. These towns now send a number of tui-
tion students to the Great Barrington high school.

An agricultural department at this center might be found very
serviceable, therefore, to a considerable surrounding territory,
as well as to Great Barrington itself. Instances are given of
students, living at home, but attending school in Pittsfield
from points as far south as Stockbridge. The distance from
Stockbridge to Pittsfield is of course much greater than the
distance from Stockbridge to Great Barrington. It has been

urged that, with an agricultural school at Pittsfield and an
agricultural department at Great Barrington, the Berkshire
section of the State would be well supplied with means for the
agricultural education of boys fourteen or more years of age.

(2) West Springfield has been suggested as a favorable spot
for a strong agricultural department course in market gardening
as well as in general agriculture. There would be abundance
of illustrative work going on within easy reach, and the trans-
portation facilities for day students would be all that could be
desired.

(3) Palmer might be another desirable center. This is a
town of about 8,000 inhabitants, and is made up of several vil-
lages. It is an important transportation center, being inter-
sected by several steam railway lines and served by numerous
electric car lines radiating from Palmer village as a center.
A large farming area might thus be readily accommodated.

Across the river from the village is a very large State institu-
tion, with extensive farms and varied farming operations.
Much help is there employed, and practical work might there
be had by boys from village homes who desired to be trained
for farm hfe and work. The superintendent of this institution
has expressed great interest in the possible establishment of an
agricultural department in the Palmer high school, and might
be relied upon to do everything possible for enhancing the value
of its practical instruction.

Palmer has three outlying manufacturing villages, in each of
which the mill property includes farming land. The agents of
the mills have expressed considerable interest in the possibility
of an agricultural department in the Palmer high school. One
of them would contribute forestry demonstration work; the
others would render any assistance which might be found prac-
ticable.

(4) Sandwich, if the Faunce Demonstration Farm were not
developed into a separate agricultural school, would be ad-
mirably suited for an agricultural department. The farm would
provide excellent means for demonstration and practice work at
the school, since the farm is but a few steps from the high school

building.

(5) Aingston would be another favorable point. Though
Kingston itself might not assure an enrollment sufficient to war-
rant the establishment of such a department at the local high
school, the transportation facilities are such that a department
located at Kingston might serve a considerable territory, includ-
ing the towns of Plymouth, Carver, Plympton, Halifax, Silver
Lake and Duxbury.

Kingston no doubt has been suggested owing to the keen local
interest in agricultural improvement which has already been
aroused. There is a model farm operated by a private owner
in the vicinity of the high school, which would afford proper
demonstration facilities.

(6) Byfield has been suggested as a good center for an agri-
cultural department. Dummer Academy is located in this town,
and owns a farm fairly typical of the land in this section. It
has been suggested that the town authorities, acting with the
officers of Dummer Academy, might utilize the academy farm
and a portion of the academy buildings for the establishment of
stich a department. Byfield has electric car service as well as
steam, and day students from Newbury, Georgetown, Rowley
and Ipswich might there be accommodated.

(7) Walpole is another location which has been suggested for
a department. Three very interesting farms, one a purely
investment proposition, one where clean milk is produced under
exceptionally good conditions, and another where an undertak-
ing is under way for developing a farm which shall grow all
its own grain as well as roughage, would afford very unusual
illustrative facilities, not too far distant. Walpole has both
steam and electric railway service, and a department in the
Walpole high school might well serve a considerable surround-
ing section. ;

(8) Petersham is another center which has been suggested.
A central school building, costing $75,000, has been given to
the town.. In this are accommodated all of the grades of the
local schools, including the high school. In order that agri-
cultural instruction might be given, a small greenhouse was
erected and a small tract of land for out-door work was pro-
vided. The school has already taken for its name the “ Peters-
bam Agricultural High School.”

3. Procedure for choosing Locations for Vocational Agri-
cultural Schools. — Other desirable locations for both agricul-
tural schools and agricultural departments will undoubtedly be
brought to view. The lists above given simply make record of
those possible centers which have most readily singled them-
selves out, owing to certain obvious, and, as a rule, peculiarly
advantageous, local conditions.

No serious work could be expected of any community in the
direction of a definite canvass of its specific requirements and
possibilities, in the absence of legislation fixing the general
policy of the State as to the desirability of establishing a sys-
tem of agricultural schools throughout the Commonwealth.
Such legislation might be expected to follow the submission of
this report. For those conducting the preliminary investiga-
tions leading to this report to have urged such canvasses would
have been to enter the field of propaganda, — a field construed
to be foreign to the present purpose.

In the event of favorable action by the Legislature on the
establishment of the system of vocational agricultural schools
recommended in this report, the procedure for choosing a loca-
tion for a school or a department would probably be somewhat
as follows: —

(1) A local committee interested in the subject might peti-
tion the Board of Education for a conference. Such a commit-
tee might be the regular school committee, acting through the
superintendent of schools; or it might be a group of interested
citizens, such as members of a grange or of a board of trade.

(2) The conference might be expected to result (a) in a
careful canvass of the local farming conditions and the local
market demands for agricultural products; and (b) in the
tentative formulation of a course of training which appeared
to be suited to the farming needs of the particular locality.

(3) It might then be advisable that a careful census of the
local school population should be made, for the purpose of
estimating the number of boys just approaching the fourteenth
birthday or just past it, who would enroll in a school which
should provide such a course of training as that tentatively
formulated,

(4) With the list of prospective students in hand, the next

step would probably be to secure assurance from the parents
of those students of willingness to co-operate heartily with the
school in carrying out the programme of part-time work, which
is believed to be essential to the proper conduct of the proposed
type of agricultural education.

(5) Assured of the necessary home farm co-operation, and
an adequate enrollment, the next natural steps would be: (a)
consideration of suitable land, buildings and equipment, and
their prebable cost; (b) the availability of suitable teachers, and
their probable cost; and (¢) the probable cost of maintenance,
other than the expense for officers of instruction and adminis-
tration.

If a department in a high school were contemplated, the above
problems of (@) suitable quarters and equipment, (0) instruction
and (¢) miscellaneous necessary maintenance cost would be
much simplified. The attitude of the local high school ofticers
and teachers would previously have been ascertained when the
proposed course of traiming was formulated.

(6) With all the needs definitely known, ways and means of
providing funds and election or appointment of official local
authorities for the establishment of the school, or department,
would be the next natural objects of attention.

A. Action might be speedy and the problems simple, if the
town or city were to provide the school for itself.

B. Action might be slow and the problems more difficult, if
the school were to be provided by a district of several cities or
towns, or cities and towns.

(. All would most readily be accomplished, if a private
donor, or group of donors, should provide the necessary plant.
The Oliver Sinith fund of $310,000 was a great aid in estab-
lishing the agricultural school at Northampton; as was the
Faunce bequest in establishing the Faunce Demonstration Farm
at Sandwich, and the resultant agricultural instruction during
part of the year now given high school students in that town.

In addition to the suggested North Shore school which it is
thought might be built and equipped by private donors, it is
understood that another project, somewhat of the Sandwich type,
is likely to be provided for at an early date by private gift.

Few benefactions are likely to be more permanently useful
than modest gifts and bequests of the Faunce type, which would
provide desirable school equipment at many points for the more
practical elements of the agricultural education of the boys and
girls who expect to live their lives and do their work on Massa-
chusetts farms. If large discretionary powers were lodged with
the trustees, local school authorities or the Board of Education,
every interest of future progress would be served, as well as the
obvious present need, by such benefactions.

(7) Finally, it may be said that, since the schools proposed
would receive State aid for their maintenance, subject to ap-
proval by the Board of Education, the Commissioner of Educa-
tion and those representing him might be expected to render, at
all stages of the proceedings, every possible assistance to any
local community which desired to establish the types of agricul-
tural education proposed by this report.

RECOMMENDATION WITH REGARD TO AGRICULTURAL
EDUCATION FOR WORCESTER.

In accordance with the provisions of chapter 108 of the Re-
solves of 1910, the investigation leading to this report consid-
ered the “ practicability and desirability of establishing a farm
school in the city of Worcester in which instruction may he
given, free, in the raising of fruits, vegetables, flowers, grains,
plants and trees, and in the care of domestic animals, and in
which similar instruction suitable to their years may be given
to children.”

It will be remembered that the 1905 Massachusetts State
census showed that the agricultural produce of Worcester County
was reported as $14,279,000, and of the city of Worcester alone
as $1,491,000. While the second city in population, Worces-
ter ranked first of the cities and towns in the value of its agri-
cultural products.

The farm products of Worcester are widely varied and are
readily marketed. The long slopes which characterize the out-
Iving land are found to be remarkably favorable for fruit,
particularly for apple growing; dairy and poultry products hold
a strong position; market gardening is highly promising.

Worcester has two important and very active organizations
in its agricultural and horticultural societies. The city has
made a most commendable beginning in trade sehool work,
and the rounding out of its system of vocational training of
secondary grade might well take the form of a strong separate
agricultural school. The resources of the city and the imper-
tance of its farming interests would fully warrant the estab-
lishment and maintenance of such a school.

It is believed that the provisions proposed in this report for
mecting the needs of the State at large for a system of voca-
tional agricultural education of secondary grade would mect
the requirements of Worcester, and that, therefore, special leg-
islation for this particular city should not be herein proposed.

AGRICULTURE AS A PHASE OF LIBERAL EDUCATION IN
THE HIGH SCHOOLS OF MASSACHUSETTS.

It is appropriate that something should be said in this report
with respect to the study of agriculture as a part of the program
of the so-called liberal education, to which our school system
has been for the most part devoted.

There is an active movement in secondary education looking
to more effective organization of subject matter and method for
the purposes of liberal or cultural education. In this movement
it is natural that many persons should look upon agriculture as
a promising and attractive field of secondary school study,
especially for rural high schools. For this purpose it presents
several aspects.

1. Agricultural Lands and People.-—In the economic hfe
of all the centuries, agriculture has played an important part.
The control of the fertile lands in the great valleys and plains
has made and unmade nations. Political erganization has in
all times been greatly affected by the ownership of land and by
the kind of agriculture practiced.

In our own century territorial division of labor plays an
important part, with the result that one kind of farm industry
monopolizes the lower half of the Mississippi valley; another,
the warm valleys of California; another, eastern Asia and still
another, the plains of Canada.

To the student of the play of social forces, the distribution
of population along agricultural lines is a fascinating theme.
One can read with intense interest of the effects of occupations
on the social life of the peoples of the prairies and the tropics,
of the inhabitants of the great steppes of Russia and of the
small cultivators of France and Italy.

2. Agricultural Science and Invention. — Especially inter-
esting as themes for study are the transitions which the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries have brought into agriculture.
The inventions of science and the evolution of machinery, sub-
stituting animal strength and natural forces for human brawn

and sinew, have increased agricultural production, have ex-
tended human prosperity, and have made the farm a field
wherein scientific knowledge finds abundant appHeation.

Many a scientist has, within the last half-century, enriched
humanity by his contributions to effective farm production.
The work of our own national government in agricultural re-
search and in spreading a knowledge of approved methods con-
stitutes a most cheering sign of governmental activity.

It is evident that, along these and allied lines, it is possible
to build up a field of study which as a part of liberal eduea-
tion would easily rank with certain subjects now taught with
great effort in the pubhe high schools of rural communities.

3. Science Laboratory Illustrations from Agriculture. —
Agriculture must increasingly be considered as a field of appled
science. Physical and commercial geography, botany, zodlogy,
bacteriology, physiology, chemistry, economics, have numerous
important applications in agriculture, and many of these appli-
cations are so concrete and simple as to constitute excellent lab-
oratory illustrations.

It is not strange that seekers for more satisfactory methods
of teaching science should turn preferably to agriculture for
suggestion and material. It has become more and more evi-
dent that science cannot be very effectively taught to secondary
students strictly in its “ pure” form. Children of the adoles-
cent stage of development apparently respond more satisfactorily
to that science teaching which begins with applications and con-
crete cases, and then merges into generalizations, prineiples and
laws. We know that this is the historic order in the evolution of
scientific knowledge, and it is not improbable that in the main
the pedagogie order must follow the historic order.

In the high school attempts are being made in many places to
organize general science for first or second year instruction.
This course consists in some instances merely of topics selected
from various sciences; in others it is based on subjects, like
physical geography, which involve principles and applications
from many sciences,

A more satisfactory procedure, in the view of many educators.
will be to take the subject of agriculture, abounding in direct

and practical applications from many scientific fields, and to
organize a course of instruction in which the pupil will advance
from concrete experience to an appreciation of underlying scien-
tific principles, and also at every step become cognizant of the
real significance of the subject in promoting personal and social
well-being. An able presentation of secondary school science
of this kind recently appeared from the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture (Experiment Station Record, September,
OTC):

The unsatisfactory results not infrequently obtained from the
study of abstract mathematics and formalized physics seem
to justify the belief that agriculture can be used to advantage
as a means of approach to science, in a scheme for hberal edu-
cation in secondary schools.

4. Agriculture and Wholesome Living. — The conception of
modern liberal education involves to an increasing extent a study
of social conditions and of the factors that make for wholesome
personal and community living.

We are in the midst of a reaction against the movement to
the city, and students of social economy are becoming more and
more convineed that the development of sound citizenship, as
well as of sound physique, as a nation, is dependent on a large
agricultural population.

The study of agriculture as a field of human activity involves
constant reference to the social characteristics of rural com-
munities, and to the means for the better development of desir-
able pursuits. One important question relates to the bearing
en physical health of rural life and its occupations.

5. Agriculture and the Educational Values of Concrete EHa-
pertence. — Modern education is developing a wider and better
psychological outlook. Education in the past has been identified
with instruction given in schools; and school training has, owing
to the force of circumstances, been an education by means of
books and writing, modified in recent years by more or less
laboratory experience. Modern pedagogy, on the other hand,
maintains that academic teaching can be effective only as it
builds on a basis of conerete experience, obtained by a thorough
contact with the realities of life.

Before the development of modern cities and the resulting
industrial conditions, a large majority of growing boys and girls
had abundant cpportunity to share in productive occupations, to
participate in the natural sports of childhood and to acquire
industrial experience, simply through contact with their environ-
ment. It seems to be biologically true that this basal experience
is necessary, as antecedent to the form of education we call
academic.

6. Some Agriculture almost Indispensable to Sound Mduca-
tion. — Manual training and laboratory work in science have
been undertaken partly as a means to realize this experience.
Both are necessarily made artificial by the cramped conditions
under which they must be conducted. Agriculture offers a
peculiar opportunity for a more extended and satisfying field,
wherein this basal experience may be acquired.

Tt must be noted that this argument has no reference to voca-
tional training. In fact, it might be urged from the standpoint
of liberal education that persons destined for the professions
and learned callings stand in greatest need in their earlier years
of broad experience with the soil, with domestic animals and
with the conditions of production in nature. Jn many commu-
nities a certain number of hours per week devoted to agricultural
production, whether in school gardening or in the more complex
farming activities, may easily be regarded as an almost indis-
pensable part of a liberal education, when one takes into account
the conditions involved in modern life.

7. Agricultural Teat-books for Reading Courses. — 'The above
considerations serve to define to some extent the part which
agriculture may play im a system of liberal education.

Tn hundreds of high schools of the United States descriptive
courses in agriculture are now offered. They are based on many
excellent text-books which have appeared, and the instruction
often consists mainly in guiding the reading of the pupils. if
the teacher himself be interested in the larger economic and
scientific aspects of modern agriculture, as well as in its historic
evolution, he can make the subject one of intense interest, even
without laboratory demonstration or field experience.

Much of our high school education must still be obtained from
text-books, and the work described above offers surely as attrac-

tive a subject of study as ancient history, text-book science as
sometimes still taught, or mathematics.

8. Agricultural Manuals for Science Laboratories. — Many
schools are ambitious to go farther, and in a somewhat different
direction. They prefer not to treat agriculture in its broad geo-
eraphical or historie aspects, but to use it as a means of introduc-
ing some notions of science.

Here, again, many excellent books and manuals are avail-
able, and the opportunities for laboratory illustration may be
easily supplied. In fact, a most valuable line of experimenta-
tion may be followed with the seantiest of materials and equip-
ment, such as a farmer might often possess. The skilled and
enthusiastic teacher is able in this way to make agriculture not
only a means of general culture, but a most valuable means of
approach to the more abstract sciences.

9. Agriculture and Enlarged Educational Opportunity. — A
few schools have gone farther still. They have, by individual
or joint effort, carried out certain productive enterprises on land
in their possession. They have engaged in gardening, and in
some instances have performed experiments with certain forms
of live stock. The work has been made the center of correla-
tion. for manual training, commercial arithmetic and science.
The social significance of co-operative effort has been: revealed,
and a new spirit with reference to country life evoked.

This work, while not confessedly industrial, does serve a
valuable vocational purpose, in that it gives something of the
ideal and outlook which ultimately constitute a large element in
vocational success. But the contributions to liberal education
of the schools in which this form of work has been developed
are unmistakable. The widening horizon of the pupil, his
greater sympathy with the prosaic occupations of life, and his
crowing appreciation of the possibilities of art and science ap-
plied in every-day callings, tend at every step to render him
a person of power and to add to his possibilities of growth.

There are educators who believe that such a reorganization
of the program of liberal education, as here described, whereby
special studies and practices shall lead into larger local, indus-
trial and social activities, constitutes the greatest opportunity

of the future for our schools. Agriculture, as the occupation of
half the American population and an important portion of the
people of Massachusetts, is an especially inviting field.

10. Motives of Liberal Education now Dominant. — The
above types of agricultural education are all controlled by the
motives dominant in liberal education. It is not intended that
they shall be determined by the conditions and necessities of
vocational education. It is desirable that, when the ends of
liberal education are beimg sought, only meidental consideration
should be given to the industrial significance of the means em-
ployed. Nevertheless, it must be apparent that all the above
methods of instruction, even when based solely on the text-
book, have some influence on vocational skill.

Success in one’s calling depends on something more than
skill, and capacity to apply science and art to productive ends;
it involves social outlook, wider sympathies and the ideals which
actuate life. While the above forms of education cannot be
called vocational, they nevertheless should contribute ideals
and appreciation, — important elements in the success of those
youths who ultimately turn to agriculture as an occupation.

The study of agriculture above deseribed should, so far as
State encouragement and support are concerned, stand in the
same position as the study of foreign languages, history, mathe-
matics, science and all subjects traditionally associated with
liberal education. It should not be aided by the State, as though
it were part of a system of vocational education.

o.4

AGRICULTURE AS A PHASE OF LIBERAL EDUCATION IN
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF MASSACHUSETTS."

Part I.

The Present Status.

While there is as yet no systematic or general recognition
of agriculture in the program of the elementary public schools
of the State, enough has been done in teaching this subject to
show that, within the hmits of the capacity of the children, such
instruction is entirely practicable, and that the results justify
an extension of this kind of work. Even in one-room rural
schools, as at Hinsdale and Peru, teachers guided and directed
by eapable and skillful supervision have overcome apparent
hmitations, and have given boys ranging from twelve to four-
teen years of age a knowledge of the best methods and actual
practice in the raising of certain staple vegetables. An example
of one of the projects that has been found most feasible and
satisfactory is given as Part II. of this chapter.

Some Definite Results.

The instruction in agriculture in the elementary schools
has led to a general use of the leaflets and bulletins issued by
the United States Department of Agriculture, by the State
Board of Agriculture and by the Massachusetts Agricultural
College. Not only do the boys in connection with their school
projects read with interest and appreciation these bulletins,
but the school becomes a medium through which such informa-
tion on the best methods of ‘culture is brought into the com-
munity itself. Farmers have thus become acquainted with
approved methods of cultivating certain crops, and use such
information in their own practice. One community, for ex-
ample, has learned the value of the formalin treatment for
seab in potatoes, the best and cheapest combinations for ferti-

1 Prepared by Deputy Commissioner Orr.

lizers, and the use of the Bordeaux mixture for the prevention
of potato blight.

Besides these economic results, an increased interest in and
appreciation of the school have been developed among the
people. It las been possible to introduce in such rural schools
other practical projects in dressmaking and cooking, in which
undertakings the girls of the upper grammar grades have
shown efficiency and ability. In these and other ways help-
ful relations have been established between the school, and the
arts of the farm and home. In the schools where such exer-
cises have been introduced with success, it has been found that
the boys acquire added interest in school work along all lines.
The direct use made of penmanship, arithmetic, composition,
bookkeeping, drawing and manual training has resulted in an
improved quality of work in those branches.

The Value of Elementary Agriculture.

Instruction in elementary agriculture in the upper grammar
erades has a direct value in itself, because it contributes to the
prosperity of the farming community by aiding in the intro-
duction of improved methods.

Teachers, by means of such courses, have been able to in-
erease the interest among their pupils in the work and the
activities of the farm. One may hope that, through such influ-
ences, boys may be induced to remain in the country districts;
but sufficient data are not as yet at hand to demonstrate that
elementary agriculture in the schools accomplishes such a result.
It will be agreed that it is highly desirable to make use of all
possible means to check the present excessive tendency toward
the city.

The work in agriculture in a rural school opens up a way for
helpful co-operation between the school on the one hand, and
the home and the farm on the other. One of the best oppor-
tunities for applving the teaching of the school is when a boy
secures a plot of land in the home garden or farm, and cultivates
it according to the best methods. Such an undertaking should
be carried out as a business enterprise, an account kept of re-
ceipts and expenditures, and a statement made at the close of
the season which shall show the balance of profit or loss.

Courses in elementary agriculture furnish a preparation for
the direct vocational work in schools of higher grade. Pupils
who have carried out one or more garden enterprises have ac-
quired some knowledge of elementary methods in farming, and
some information regarding the vegetable raised, soil, weather
conditions, effects of fertilizer, heat, light and moisture. They
thus come to the more advanced work with a large body of
experience, which the secondary school teacher may utilize to
advantage. ;

Agencies to Promote Elementary Agriculture.

1. Nature Study. — In the early years of the school life of
the pupil he is led to observe plant and animal life, and gains
a considerable body of experience relating to the phenomena
of weather, soils and local natural history. When elementary
instruction in agriculture has been thoroughly established and
systematized, it will be possible to direct and shape nature
study so as to give it more definite aims and purposes than at
present, and at the same time to retain the quality in that study
which makes for appreciation and enjoyment of nature.

2. School Gardens. — The school garden is winning a place
in the public schools of the State. Through the undertakings
involved in gardening, the pupil gains experience, knowledge
and skill in certain processes connected with farming. It is
desirable that the school-garden work should be so directed
as to give the pupil a definite task, in accomplishing which he
must overcome real difficulties in the soil, learn to protect his
crop against insect pests and against untoward weather condi-
tions, and finally secure ‘a tangible and measurable product.
The school garden may thus closely approximate actual farm-
ing conditions. The normal schools of the State, particularly
at North Adams and Hyannis, are giving serious attention to
school gardening of this character. Use is being made in
this activity of the motives that underlie social and collective
action, while opportunity is afforded for wholesome rivalry and
for desire for individual excellence.

3. Potato and Corn Clubs. — Under the auspices of the Mas-
sachusetts Agricultural College, a large number of boys in dif-
ferent parts of the State have been organized into societies for

raising certain staples in accordance with the best scientific
methods. Under the leadership and direction of members of
the faculty of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, a wide-
spread interest in agriculture has been developed. Seed of
approved qualty is distributed to the members of these clubs,
and full directions are given regarding culture and harvesting.
Exhibits are held at the close of the season under the auspices
of local granges or other organizations. Prizes are awarded
for the best results." By these means the boys are stimulated,
by emulation and friendly rivalry, to put both skill and in-
dustry into their individual undertakings. Some notable
results have been secured through this movement, in the culture
of both corn and potatoes.

4. Summer Courses. — The Massachusetts Agricultural Col-
lege, by its summer courses for the training of teachers, by its
conferences on rural conditions and by the travelling school of
instruction, in which use is made of the train and trolley ser-
vice of the State, is doing valuable work in stimulating an in-
terest in farming and in spreading a knowledge of scientific
method among teachers.

5. The Work of the Board of Education. — An agent of the
Board of Education is giving a large part of his time and atten-
tion to the encouragement and direction of teachers and super-
intendents in the establishment and conduct of elementary
work in agriculture. Under his direction a manual is being
prepared which gives directions for carrying out a number of
projects in agriculture. This publication furnishes detailed
and specific instructions, whereby superintendents and teachers
will be enabled to conduct classes in the different projects in-
telligently and effectively. In Part IT. of this chapter a brief
description of this manual, and an example of one of the projects
are given.

Provisions for Batension and Development.

In order that elementary agriculture in the grammar grades
may be carried on with suecess, it is necessary that teachers
should receive some training for the work. Such preparation may
be given in several ways. The manual to which reference has
already been made should enable an alert, progressive teacher,

when guided by her superintendent, to carry out with success
certain undertakings in agriculture. The normal schools and
the summer school at the Massachusetts Agricultural College
are already rendering service by training their students for the
work which falls to a teacher in a rural school, and are in some
instances giving direct instruction in the processes of farming.
It is important that superintendents who are in charge of
schools in the country should inform themselves on elementary
agriculture. Guidance and help from the superintendent are
important factors in promoting the efficiency of a teacher in
this field of instruction. It has been suggested that the Board
of Education might well consider the question of securing a
erant of money from which payments might be made to the
smaller towns in order that the salaries of teachers who are
making a success of the work in agriculture and in other prac-
tical branches might be increased. Such an incentive would
encourage capable young women to enter the service of the
rural schools, and to continue in this field of work for a time.
It has been shown by experience that such teachers with a ca-
pacity for leadership, not only improve the quality of the school
work, but also exercise a most helpful influence upon the com-
munity life, this influence being shown in the betterment of
economic and social conditions.

Pane 2.

Introduction.

An agent of the Board of Education is preparing a manual
for the instruction of teachers in the work of elementary ag-
riculture. This bulletin is entitled “ Some Agricultural Pro-
jects for Elementary Schools.” The nature of the work is best
shown by a brief description of each of the four parts, and by
an example of one of the projects.

The Divisions of the Manual.

Part I. The Projects. -— This portion of the bulletin gives
full and specifie directions, whereby the children in the elemen-
tary schools, under the direction of teachers, may successfully
raise such vegetables as potatoes, tomatoes, parsnips, lettuce,

alfalfa and radishes. In all, fourteen such undertakings are
described.

Part II. Suggestions for Garden Work.— One finds here
full directions as to how the work in gardening can be con-
ducted to best advantage in an elementary school. The place
of such work in the program is described, and a statement is
added of the necessary equipment in land, tools, measures,
seeds, fertilizers and reference and study books.

Part III. Laboratory Work. — This section contains de-
tailed descriptions of twelve experiments relating to plants and
soil.

Part IV. Collateral Work. — Instruction is given as to
the ways in which pupils may be given practice in the writing
of letters, in the keeping of diaries, in applying arithmetic,
drawing and manual training and in the use of business forms
in connection with the work of elementary agriculture. Sug-
gestions are made on the use of material, afforded by elementary
agriculture, as a basis for composition exercises. Possible
correlation with the work in geography and in science is also
indicated.

The manual on agriculture projects should do much in pro-
moting the practical work in the upper grammar grades, be-
cause it puts at the command of teachers and superintendents
a body of exercises that have been carefully prepared for use
under usual school conditions.

First Project. — Potato.

A brief summary of this project is given as an illustration
of the method of treatment used in the manual.

Preparation of the Soil. — Advice is given on the kinds of
soil adapted for potato culture. The proper time for plowing
and the methods to be used in preparing the soil, by harrowing
and furrowing, are also discussed. Several kinds of fertilizers
are described. The manual points out ways whereby fertilizers
may be obtained at smallest expense and applied in the field to
best advantage.

Seed, Selection and Preparation. — The standard varieties
of seed and the qualities desired in potatoes used for planting

are described. Other topics are: the use of the formalin solu-
tion to prevent scab, the need of care in sprouting, and the best
ways of planting.

Cultivation. — Under this head instruction is given on hoe-
ing and hilling. The use of Paris green to destroy the potato
bug and spraying with the Bordeaux mixture to prevent blight
are treated.

Harvesting. — The manual tells the learner when and how
a crop is harvested. <A plan for estimating the number of
potatoes yielded by the field and a form for a report on the
rumber of potatoes in each hill are given. A list of books
dealing with potato culture is presented.

100

APPENDIX.

The Commoanucalth of Massachusetts

In the Year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eleven.

An AcT TO CODIFY AND AMEND LEGISLATION RELATING TO STATE-AIDED

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION.

Be it enacted, etc., as follows:

CONSTRUCTION.

Section 1. The following words and phrases as hereinafter used
in this act shall, unless a different meaning is plainly required by
the context, have the following meanings: —

1. “ Vocational education ”
trolling purpose is to fit for profitable employment.

2. “ Industrial education ” shall mean that form of vocational edu-
cation which fits for the trades, erafts and manufacturing pursuits,
including the oceupations of girls and women earried on in work-
shops.

3. “ Acrieultural education ” shall mean that form of vocational
education which fits for the cecupations connected with the tillage
of the soil, the care of domestie animals, forestry and other wage-
earning or productive work on the farm.

4. “Household arts” edueation shall mean that form of voea-
tional education which fits for oceupations connected with the
household.

5. “ Independent industrial, agrieultural or household arts school ”

shall! mean any education whose econ-

shall mean an organization of courses, pupils and teachers, under a
distinctive management approved by the board of edueation, de-
signed to give either industrial, agricultural or household arts edu-
eation as herein defined.

6. “ Evening class” in an industrial, agricultural or household arts
school shall mean a class giving such training as can be taken by
persons already employed during the working day, and which, in
order to be called vocational, must in its instruction deal with the
subject matter of the day employment, and be so carried on as
to relate to the day employment.

7. “ Part-time (or continuation) class” in an industrial, agricul-
tural or household arts school shall mean a voeational class for per-
sons giving a portion of their working time to profitable employment,
and receiving in the part-time school, instruetion complementary to
the practical work which is being carried on in such employment.

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101

To give “a portion of their working time ” such persons must give
a portion of each day, week or longer period to such part-time class
during the period in which it is in session.

8. “Tndependent agricultural school ” shall mean either an organi-
zation of courses, pupils and teachers, under a distinetive manage-
ment designed to give agricultural education, as hereinafter pro-
vided for, or a separate agricultural department, offering in a high
school, as elective work, training in the principles and practice of
agriculture of an extent and character approved by the board of
edueation as vocational.

9. “Independent household arts school” shall mean a vocational
school designed to develop on a vocational basis the capacity for
household work, such as the eallings of cookery, household service
and other occupations in the household.

STATE ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION.

Section 2. The board of education shall be charged with the duty
and given all necessary power to investigate and to aid in the intro-
duction of industrial, agricultural and household arts education; to
initiate and superintend the establishment and maintenance of
schools for the aforesaid forms of education; and to supervise and
approve such schools, as hereinafter provided. The board of edu-
cation shall make a report annually to the legislature, describing
the condition and progress of industrial, agricultural and household
arts education during the year, and making such recommendations
as such board may deem advisable.

TYPES OF SCHOOLS.

Section 3. In order that instruction in the principles and the
practice of the arts may go on together, independent industrial,
agricultural and household arts schools may offer instruction in day,
part-time and evening classes. Attendance upon such day or part-
time classes shall be restricted to those over fourteen and under
twenty-five years of age; and upon such evening classes, to those
over seventeen years of age.

LOCAL ADMINISTRATION AND CONTROL.

Section 4. Any city or town may, through its school committee
or through a board of trustees elected by the city or town to serve
for a period of not to exceed five years, to be known as the local
board of trustees for vocational education, establish and maintain
independent industrial, agricultural and household arts schools.

Section 5. 1. Districts composed of cities or towns, or cities and
towns, may, through a board of trustees to be known as the district

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board of trustees for vocational edueation, establish and maintain
independent industrial, agricultural or household arts schools. Such
district board of trustees may consist of the chairman and two other
members of the school committee of each of such cities and towns,
to be appointed for the purpose by each of the respective school com-
mittees thereof; or any such city or town may elect three resi-
dents thereof to serve as its representatives on such district board
of trustees.

2. Such a district board of trustees for vocational education may
adopt for a period of ene year or more a plan of organization,
administration and support for such schools. Such a plan, if ap-
proved by the board of education, shall constitute a binding contract
between the cities or towns which are, through the action of their
respective representatives on such a district board of trustees, made
parties thereto, and shall not be altered or annulled except by vote
of two-thirds of the entire district board of trustees and the consent
of the board of education to such alteration or annulment.

Section 6. Loeal and district boards of trustees for vocational
edueation, administering approved industrial, agricultural or house-
hold arts schools, shall, under a scheme to be approved by the board
of education, appoint an advisory committee composed of members
representing local trades, industries and occupations. It shall be the
duty of such advisory committees to counsel with and advise such
loeal or district boards of trustees and other school officials having
the management and supervision of such schools.

NON-RESIDENT PUPILS.

Section 7. 1. Any resident of any city or town in Massachusetts
which does not maintain an approved independent industrial, agri-
cultural or household arts school, offering the type of training which
he desires, may make application for admission to such a school
maintained by another city or town. The board of education, whose
decision shall be final, may approve or disapprove such application.
In making such a decision the board of edueation shall take into
consideration: the opportunities for free vocational training in the
community in which the applicant resides; the financial status of
the community; the age, sex, preparation, aptitude and previous
record of the applicant; and all other relevant circumstances.

2. The city or town in which the child resides, whose application
for admission to an approved independent industrial, agricultural
or household arts school maintained by another city or town has been
approved, shall pay such tuition fee as may be fixed by the board
of education; and the commonwealth shall reimburse such a city or
town, as provided for in this act. If any city or town neglects or

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105

refuses to pay for such tuition, it shall be liable therefor in an action
of contract to the city or town, or cities and towns, maintaining the
school which the pupil, with the approval of the said board,
attended.

REIMBURSEMENT.

Section 8. Independent industrial, agricultural and household
arts schools shall, as long as they are approved by the board of
education as to organization, control, location, equipment, courses
of study, qualifications of teachers, methods of instruction, conditions
of admission, employment of pupils and expenditures of money,
constitute approved local or district independent vocational schools.
Cities and towns maintaining such approved local or district inde-
pendent vocational schools shall receive reimbursement as provided
for in sections nine and ten of this act.

Section 9. 1. The commonwealth, in order to aid in the mainte-
nance of approved local or district independent industrial and house-
hold arts schools and of independent agricultural schools consisting
of other than agricultural departments in high schools, shall, as pro-
vided for in this act, pay annually from the treasury to cities and.
towns maintaining such schools an amount equal to one-half the sum
to be known as the net maintenance sum. Such net maintenance sum
shall consist of the total sum raised by local taxation and expended
for the maintenance of such a school, less the amount, for the same
period, of tuition claims, paid or unpaid, and receipts from the work
of pupils or the sale of products.

2. Cities and towns maintaining approved local or district inde-
pendent agricultural schools consisting only of agricultural depart-
ments in high schools shall be reimbursed by the commonwealth, as
provided for in this act, only to the extent of two-thirds of the
salary paid to the instructors in such agricultural departments: pro-

’ vided, that the total amount of money expended by the common-

wealth in the reimbursement of such cities and towns for the salaries
of such instructors for any given year shall not exceed ten thousand
dollars.

3. Cities and towns that have paid claims for tuition in approved
local or district independent vocational schools shall be reimbursed
by the commonwealth, as provided for in this act, to the extent of
one-half the sum expended by such cities and towns in payment of
such claims.

SECTION 10. On or before the first Wednesday of January of each
year the board of education shall present to the legislature a state-
ment of the amount expended previous to the preceding first day
of December by cities and towns in the maintenance of approved

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local or district independent vocational schools, or in payment of
claims for tuition in such schools, for which such cities and towns
should receive reimbursement, as provided for in this act. On the
basis of such a statement the legislature may make an appropriation
for the reimbursement of such cities and towns up to such first day
of December.

ACTS AND PARTS OF ACTS REPEALED. ,

Srcrion 11. 1. Sections one to six inelusive of chapter five hun-
dred and five of the acts of nineteen hundred and six, sections one to
four inclusive of chapter five hundred and seventy-two of the acts of
nineteen hundred and eight, chapter five hundred and forty of the
acts of nineteen hundred and nine, and all acts and parts of acts
inconsistent herewith, are hereby repealed.

2. Schools, heretofore established under the acts and parts of acts
repealed by this section, and approved by the board of edueation,
shall continue in operation subject to the provisions of this act for
such schools.

—

THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
a a

REPORT OF THE BOARD OF —
EDUCATION ON AGRI.
CULTURAL EDUCATION

Submitted to the Legislature of Massachusetts of 1911, in
accordance with Chapters 108 and 133, Resolves of 1910

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Full text of "Report of the Board of Education of Massachusetts on agricultural education. Submitted to the Legislature of Massachusetts in accordance with resolves approved May 28 and June 10, 1910. January, 1911"

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