The laboratory work for most sciences and for some vocations can be carried on entirely indoors. But for such a science as agriculture there must be both an indoor and an outdoor laboratory. Some of the practicums, demonstrations, and experiments can be carried out in an agricultural laboratory within doors. But agriculture is essentially an outdoor science, an outdoor vocation, and much of the practicum work connected with teaching it must, from the very nature of the subject, be done out-of-doors. Plots of land constitute the outdoor laboratory for the agricultural work.

Many agricultural teachers believe that the school should own or rent for a long term of years at least a part of the land to be utilized in connection with agricultural teaching in high schools. However, many others feel that the home farms of students, town backyards and vacant lots, can be utilized for the practicum work and take the place of land owned by the school. They argue that the school farm or garden presents special conditions, is unlike an actual farm, and for that reason work carried on there loses much of its value. They agree that agricultural students should carry on a certain amount of practical work in the use of land, and perform various practicums and experimental exercises in raising plants, using fertilizers, etc., but believe that this work should be carried on at home in the form of different agricultural projects supervised by the agricultural teacher.

There is no doubt that more or less of this home project work should be carried on; yet some land should be owned by the school for use in connection with its agricultural teaching, for landless pupils, for useful demonstrations for the benefit of students and farmers, for exercises which it would be unprofitable and undesirable for students to carry on at home, for work which needs the constant supervision of the teacher, for the growing of laboratory materials needed for class work in so far as land and its products can supply those needs, and for many other purposes.

FUNCTION OF LAND IN CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC SCHOOL

AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION

Probably the most impelling reason for the diversity of opinion as to the function and utilization of land in connection with high-school agricultural teaching is that there has been, until recently, no general, definite understanding as to just what agricultural instruction belongs in the grades, what belongs in the high school, and what belongs in the agricultural college. Where there is lack of agreement and understanding as to the function and subject matter of agricultural instruction in institutions, we can expect little agreement as to the utilization of land in connection with their agricultural teaching.

However, out of much discussion and differences of opinion, a fairly clear and definite understanding of the function of agricultural instruction in each of these three grades of institutions is finally coming and promises to win general acceptance. A clear understanding of the function of land in connection with agricultural instruction in the college has come within the past few years. In the case of the grades and the high school this is slower in arriving, but must come eventually as a result of the better understanding of the function of public school agricultural instruction itself.

As a basis for discussion of the use of land in connection with high-school agricultural teaching, let us review briefly present approved ideas as to agriculture in the public schools.

It is agreed that in the first six grades agricultural instruction should be in the form of nature study. The aim is to cultivate the child's powers of observation, to put him in sympathetic touch with his environment, and to give him certain units of basal knowledge with which he may interpret the facts of agriculture and geography which, in higher grades, are to be based on this nature study. The

school garden is one of the most effective means of instruction in the agriculture, or agricultural nature study, of these grades. Here the child observes and becomes acquainted with many of the common everyday facts of agriculture which everyone should know-such as the proper time for planting seeds and harvesting crops, the appearance of various seeds, fruits, and plants in their various stages of development; the different kinds of soils, the structure and use of the common garden tools, and many other things common to ordinary town as well as country life.

The seventh and eighth grades represent an intermediate stage between the lower grades and the high school.

By the time boys have reached the seventh grade they have usually reached that stage of their development that gives birth to a desire to do a man's work in the world. It is the time when the big dropping-out occurs in the city and country schools alike, because boys find they can sell their labor in the open market. This is the time when the life career motive should be emphasized and stimulated by pre-vocational work in the schools.

Agriculture in these grades should offer, to boys and girls who have a taste for agricultural things, an opportunity to do real constructive work, work which will enable them to create things by the use of their own hands and brains. This is therefore an ideal time for very practical school or home projects in the rearing of animals and the growing of plants-that is, in producing agricultural things, the proceeds of which should, in part at least, go to the students. It is the stage when the club and contest idea can be utilized to the best advantage. The results that are being obtained by the cotton, corn, and potato clubs in various parts of the United States amply justify this statement. This work gives the boy and girl practical training in the most important and most fundamental of all industries, emphasizes the value of agricultural information, stimulates a desire for knowledge, and brings the home and school together in a wholesome and desirable way.

After the youth has acquired an acquaintance with ordinary agricultural facts in the first six grades, through observations in the school garden and elsewhere; and after he has carried out two or more practical agricultural projects made a practical study of certain farm plants or animals, in the seventh and eighth grades-there will naturally develop in him a desire for a more technical knowledge of agriculture. He will, if he has an agricultural bent, begin to want to know the whys and wherefores of agriculture. He will welcome an opportunity in the high school to see demonstrations and perform practical exercises (both in the schoolroom and on the school farm) which will help him to see and to discover for himself the reasons for agricultural facts and processes with which he has become more or less familiar in the grades.

Summarizing, we may say, then, that the function of land in connection with the agricultural nature study of the first six grades is to give opportunity for observation and acquaintanceship with agricultural facts, under careful guidance. During the seventh and eighth grades it is the function of land to give the youth an opportunity for satisfying his desires, if he be country-minded, for doing practical work in agriculture in simple selected projects. Its function in the high school is, in part, to serve as an out-of-door laboratory where the student may discover for himself, or see demonstrated, basic principles of agricultural science the whys and wherefores of production, soil management, crop culture, etc. It is also a place for additional practical work-for gaining facility in agricultural operations, and the like.

It is not our purpose to discuss the function of the college farm in connection with agricultural teaching. It should be noted, however, that while the college farm still serves as an outdoor laboratory it is also a place for original experiments for agricultural research-something with which the high school farm has nothing to do.

The theories advanced in the past, that the high school

farm should be a model, a typical farm of the community, or a commercially successful farm, have now few, if any, followers. It is recognized that the main purpose of a secondary school farm is educational. Its reason for existence is that it may serve educational ends, first for pupils and secondly for the community, in the most effective way. All other functions must be subservient. The primary purposes of plant culture and animal raising on the school farm are educational. Crops are not grown to "pay." They may yield a profit, it is true, but that is a secondary consideration except in the case of special projects.

Another theory is that the high-school farm should be given up to demonstrations of this and that agricultural fact-as, the culture of new crops, how to plow, how to fertilize, etc. It is without doubt a valuable phase of the high-school agricultural department's extension work to demonstrate on the school farm agricultural principles or facts which it is desirable to call to the attention of farmers of the community. In many communities new and valuable crops might well be tried out on the school farm. Demonstrations of rotations and the use of fertilizers for different crops will often prove helpful. The school farm should be "a community contact point for the promotion of better farming." It should be utilized as an aid in improving the methods of adult farmers as well as in teaching students how to farm. Yet the primary purpose of school land owned for use in connection with agricultural teaching is not to demonstrate agricultural facts to the community.

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Another idea which has been advanced is that the high school farm should, like the college farm, be used for experimental purposes. But the high-school teacher has not the time, nor is he usually supplied with the funds, to carry on strictly experimental or research work. quently teachers do not stay long enough in one place to carry on experiments of value; or they are away for vacations and the experiments lapse-for scientific experiments can hardly be left in charge of a janitor or other untrained