Agricultural instruction in the public high schools of the United States

Front matter

Golumbia TUniversitie

^eacbere Colleae Series

^1^.

CHAPTER II Importance of agricultural instruction in the high school I3

Types of secondary schools teaching agriculture H

Legislation : • • • V" i' \ oo

Statistics of schools teaching agriculture as a separate study 22

Statistics of schools teaching agriculture incidentally. 3o

CHAPTER III High schools teaching agriculture one year or less .'..•• 42

Grove City High School, Ohio 43

New Holland High School, Ohio 45

West Milton High School, Ohio 47

South Lyon High School, Mich 4»

Wayne Township High School, Ohio 5°

Beaver Creek Township High School, Ohio 52

Riley Township High School, Ohio 53

St. Louis High School, Mich 55

Sac City High School, Iowa • 5°

High schools teaching agriculture in three or four years do

Petersham High School, Mass ^°

John Swaney School, McNabb, 111 04

Guthrie County High School, Iowa 7i

Waterf ord Township High School, Pa 75

High schools teaching agriculture only incidentally 03

Odell High School, 111 ^^

CHAPTER IV Time given to instruction _. • ■ • • ; °5

Relation of agriculture to the curriculum and to the other sciences

in the curriculum ri

The teaching force ^

Experimentation and field work ^3

Text and reference books 99 vi Contents

CHAPTER V Preparation and Salaries of Teachers of Agriculture in the

High Schools

Page

Preparation and practical experience of the teachers . 102

Salaries paid the teachers of agriculture, trained and untrained. ... 104 The agricultural college as a source of supply, with statistics on

salaries commanded by recent graduates 10^

Provision for the higher training of teachers of agriculture m

Courses for teachers given during the regular college year... iii

Summer school courses ^^-^

The summer conference ; '^ ^4

The professorship of agricultural education II5

CHAPTER VI Special Secondary Schools of Agriculture Types of special schools and state aid 1^7

Support and control , ^^9

Organization, curriculum, and equipment 127

The Alabama Congressional District Schools 12b

The Georgia Congressional District Schools 131

The Oklahoma District Schools rAT--, ^^

The Wisconsin and Michigan County Agricultural Schools I39

Faculties of the special agricultural schools 141

CHAPTER VH Problems of Agricultural Instruction in the Secondary School

Agriculture and the existing school system I43

The effect of estabUshing special schools I45

The attitude of colleges and universities i5i

Difficulties of the curriculum _. . I5«

Relation of agriculture as a branch of the high-school curriculum to the sciences already present • ■ • i5o

Relation of the agriculture taught in the high school to that

taught in the elementary schools 107

Difficulties of instruction ^"9

The time problem ^"o

The equipment problem ^7i

The teacher problem ^72

The text-book problem ^72

The methods problem ^73

The attitude of students and patrons 170

Help that may be given the schools loi

Conclusions and summary ^°^

APPENDIX A Legislation pertaining to agricultural instruction in public high schools ^ ^

APPENDIX B

Topical list of references 200

INDEX 2°^

TABLES

Page Table i. High schools and academies offering instruction in

agriculture for two or more years 24

2. Secondary schools classified as agricultural high schools,

3. Special schools classified according to the geographical

unit served _ _ 25

4. Public high schools with courses in agriculture 27

5. Agriculture taught as a separate study 28

6. Agriculture taught incidentally 29

7. Schools reporting more or less fully 29

8. Data from 151 comparable schools furnishing complete

information 31

9. Comparative data for 151 schools 34

ID. Ratios of enrollment per 10,000 of population 35

11. Ratio of enrollment in agriculture to total enrollment. 36

12. Ratio of students from farm homes to total enrollment. 37

13. Enrollment of high schools reporting 38

14. Ratio of students from farm homes to total enrollment

(in schools teaching agriculture incidentally) 38

15. Science work reported. (Same schools as in Table 14). 39

16. Number of sciences reported. (Same schools as in

17. Time given to each science. (Same schools as in

18. Distribution of schools according to the number of

weeks given to agriculture 86

19. Distribution of schools according to the number of

minutes per week given to agriculture 87

20. Distribution of schools according to the total number

of minutes per annum given to agriculture 88

21. Distribution of schools according to the year in which

agriculture is given 89

22. Distribution of schools according to the sciences pre-

ceding agriculture 91

23. Distribution of schools according to the amount of

science preceding agriculture 92

24. Distribution of schools with first-year agriculture pre-

ceded by another science 92

25. Official position of the instructor in agriculture 93

26. Distribution of teachers according to the number of

classes taught in addition to agriculture 93

27. Distribution of teachers according to the number of

hours on duty in school 94

28. Total number of classes assigned to teacher of agri-

culture and time spent daily in agriculture 94

29. Purposes to which available funds are devoted 96

30. Distribution of schools according to amounts of loans,

gifts, and expenditures for all agricultural purposes. 97

vii

Vlll

Tables

Page Table 31. Amount of experimentation work 98

32. Who performed the experiments 98

33. Schools reporting garden work 98

34. Text-books reported as used 100

35. Books reported as references five times or more loi

36. Preparation of 182 high-school teachers of agriculture. 102

37. Preparation of 120 teachers in Missouri, Nebraska, and

Ohio 103

38. Salaries of no teachers of agriculture in Missouri,

Nebraska, and Ohio 104

39. Official position and sex of the teachers of agriculture

in Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio 106

40. Salaries of teachers paid more because of ability to

teach agriculture in the high school 107

41. Salaries of agriculturists in public high schools and

other public secondary schools 108

42. Distribution of salaries of graduates from agricultural

43. Time given to agriculture in proportion to other school

work (in Alabama special agricultural schools).... 128

44. Equipment and faculties of the Congressional District

Schools of Alabama 130

45. Time given to agriculture in proportion to other school

work (in Georgia special agricultural schools) 132

46. Data on the property and incomes of the Georgia Con-

gressional District Schools 135

47. Data on the property and incomes of the Oklahoma

District Schools 136

48. Time given to agriculture in proportion to other school

work (in the Dunn County, Wis., school) 140

49. Faculties of the special agricultural schools for coun-

ties and larger districts 142

50. Data on students in agricultural schools 151

51. Difficulties experienced in teaching agriculture 169

52. The attitude of pupils and patrons toward agriculture. 176

53. Principal industries of the communities supporting agri-

cultural courses 179

54. Topics in agriculture most difficult to teach 180

Introduction

The secondary school/ especially the public high school, owes a duty to the large majority of its students who do not go to college. Its problems, therefore, must be studied as problems concerned with the future of its students in the community. Just as the city high school is seeking to an increasing extent to adjust itself to present industrial conditions, so is there a rapidly growing movement on the part of the rural and village high schools to bring their work into intimate connection and close sympathy with the life and interests of their environment.

An examination of some of the features of this movement at its present stage is the main purpose of this study. It aims to furnish data much needed for that discussion which has had to depend too largely upon individual experience for its basis. Too often has personal enthusiasm been compelled to make up for the deficiency of facts. Besides giving as accurate a picture as possible of the present agricultural work in the high schools, an attempt has been made to determine the relation of this work to the school organization, to important local industries, and to the distribution of the rural population. An inquiry has been made into the present preparation of the teachers in charge of the work and the opportunities offered them to become better equipped to carry it on. An investigation has also been carried on regarding the available supply of men trained along agricultural lines, and the conditions, professional and financial, tending to limit the supply that might otherwise

1 The schools dealt with in this investigation are all listed in the pan^- phlet. Institutions giving instruction in agriculture, Oflfice of Experment Stations, October 17, 1908, p. 10. This study deals with practically all of the high schools listed on pages 3-8 of the pamphlet.

I be available. From time to time some of the more important inferences are pointed out, while in the last chapter a consideration is given to some of the more pressing problems.

Among these problems may be mentioned the following : The need of more clearly defined ideas of educational principles involved and the lack of a definite method of teaching the subject; the relation of agriculture as a branch of the curriculum to the sciences already included in it ; the question of duplication between the work of the high school and of the elementary grades ; the attitude of the state universities outside the colleges of agriculture ; the bearing on agricultural teaching of the idea of " differentiating school work at the age of twelve " ; and the social implications involved in the special or technical agricultural high school for large political units. Special secondary schools of agriculture involve an expenditure of large sums of money and the selection of a number of specially trained teachers ; consequently they are planned, and will be, for some time to come, after careful consultation with the scientific and agricultural experts of the United States Department of Agriculture, the state agricultural colleges, and the state department of public instruction. But this expert advice has not been taken advantage of to the same extent at least by the general, or non-specialized public high schools of the small cities and rural communities. Many of these schools have come to light in the present investigation which were unknown to some of the public agencies just mentioned and sometimes to all of them. The high schools of this latter type introduce agricultural instruction because they have faith in it, but they are hampered by lack of facilities, time, and that experience or training on the part of the teacher necessary to enable him to use the means at hand.

It is in the hope that this study may serve in some measure as a clearing house of ideas on these points that it is largely devoted to an inquiry into the present status of agricultural instruction in this type of schools. Some studies of other types of schools are introduced for the help they may contribute to an intelligent discussion of the non-urban high-school problem, and are not intended to be exhaustive presentations of the work. of those institutions.

Introduction 3

The source material has been, first, direct data on the high schools themselves : ( i ) Questionaire replies from superintendents, principals, and special teachers of agriculture; (2) catalogues, class material, and other records furnished by these schools; (3) personal visits to selected schools scattered from the Atlantic Coast to the Missouri River; and (4) some little material furnished by the state reports. Second, contributory data: (i) Documentary data and personal visits to summer schools attempting to help the high-school teachers; (2) returns from officers of administration and graduates of agricultural colleges, bearing on the salary question; (3) data from special agricultural schools, bearing on certain phases of the general question; and (4) special reports of the United States Department of Agriculture, of the Bureau of Education, of state boards of agriculture, of the National Education Association, various addresses, and miscellaneous sources.

So far as possible, the replies have been reduced to similar terms so as to make comparable as large a number of schools as possible. But owing to omissions of certain items in the replies, the number of such comparable cases is considerably smaller than the number even of the fuller replies, ranging from fifty per cent to ninety per cent, according to the items compared. It has been possible to supply estimates of population, enrollment, etc., in no small degree from the state reports of Nebraska and Ohio, which states include over one-half of the schools reporting.

Chapter I Agricultural Education

The Committee on Industrial Education in Schools for Rural Communities^ expresses the opinion that " industrial education has for its purpose the acquiring of a body of usable knowledge of greater or lesser extent relating to industrial conditions, processes, and organization, and to the administration of affairs incident to the environment of the individual being educated, involving the gaining of some skill in the use of such knowledge, and the securing of mental, aesthetic, and ethical training through the acquisition and use of the knowledge indicated." The members of the committee were L. D. Harvey, chairman, L. H. Bailey, Alfred Bayliss, W. T. Carrington, and W. M. Hays. To make the above statement apply exclusively to agricultural education it is only necessary to qualify appropriately the word environment. In a narrow and more formal way, agricultural education might be regarded as the mastery of the principles underlying farm practice. Agricultural training, on the other hand, is the gaining of considerable skill in carrying on farm operations. It may be and usually is obtained by imitation or by following rules derived the user knows not how. A proper mastery of principles, however, involves more or less participation in the operations, used solely as laboratory exercises, whether carried on indoors or out.

A Brief Historical Sketch

One of the earliest proposals in this country to regard agriculture as a fit subject for higher education is found in a prospectus issued by William Smith, in 1751, designed as a model

'Report of the committee in the National Education Association, Journal of proceedings and addresses, July, 1905, p. 10.

Agricultural Education 5

for colleges. =^ This plan, providing for the chemistry of agriculture, was carried out more or less fully at Philadelphia Academy (University of Pennsylvania). We find Husbandry and Commerce mentioned in the original prospectus of King's College (Columbia University), dated May 31, 1754, and Agriculture and Merchandize in the laws and orders adopted by the governors, June 3, 1755.^ The chair of botany and agriculture in 1792 was held by Samuel Latham Mitchell, M. D. In 1794, in describing a summer course in botany, he says " An attempt is made by the professor, who is a practical farmer, to elucidate and explain the economy of plants, their affinity to animals, and the organization, excitability, stimuli, life diseases, and death of both classes of beings. The physiology of plants, . is therefore particularly enlarged upon, as connected with gardening and farming."*

One of the best instances of the actual uses of agriculture and other industrial work in an educational way for pupils of elementary and secondary school age is furnished by the schools established at New Harmony, Ind., in 1825, by William Maclure,*^ in connection with his socialistic experiment known as the New Harmony Movement. Maclure placed the schools in charge of Joseph Neef, whom he had brought to Philadelphia in 1806 to introduce Pestalozzi's method of teaching. He provided ample dormitories, books, museums, shops, experimental plats, and other facilities. The experiment was short-lived, suffering from the spirit of religious intolerance on all sides, while the location so far from the older centers of intellectual life was largely responsible for the slight impression the schools made on educational practice.

A pioneer movement in agricultural education and one that lasted much longer than many others, though not much noticed

* William Smith, Discourses on Public Affairs, second edition, London, 1762.

' Van Amringe in Universities and their Sons, edited by Joshua L. Chamberlain, pp. 583 and 598.

■• Mitchell, The Present State of Learning in the College of New York. New York, 1794.

'Will S. Monroe, Pestalozzian Movement in the United States.

in the literature of agricultural education, was the Oneida Manual Labor Institute, conducted by George Washington Gale from 1827 to 1834, and including instruction in carpentry and agriculture. This extended effort followed a few years' experience with a number of boys who were taken on to a farm near Whitesboro, Oneida County, N. Y., to which he had retired from the ministry on account of ill health. He later established Knox College, at Galesburg, 111.

A Manual Labor Academy was conducted from 1830 to 1832 at Germantown, Pa., by George Junkin, who was later the first president of Lafayette College.

Sporadic attempts, more or less futile, were made to introduce regular instruction in agriculture as a part of the school curriculum early in the last century, as at Dummer Academy, Newberry, Mass., 1824; Derby, Conn., 1824; Teachers' Seminary, Andover, Mass., 1838; The Peoples' College, Montour Falls, New York, 1853; Westfield (Mass.) Academy, 1856; and Powers Institute, Bernardston, Mass., 1857. The opening of Bussey Institute, founded by a bequest made in 1842, was delayed by Harvard College until 1870. That commendable philanthropy, the Farm School, Thompson's Island, Boston, now ninety-five years old, began instructions in agriculture in 1833, and has since continued it. Work of recognized scientific merit was inaugurated at the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale, in 1848, by the establishment of a chair of agricultural chemistry and vegetable and animal physiology.

Most of the present large list of agricultural and mechanical colleges were founded as a result of the famous Morrill Act of 1862. Of the few already in existence before this date, the Michigan Agricultural College, opened to students in 1857, is the oldest. The Morrill Act gave to each state 30,000 acres of land for each member of Congress for the establishment and maintenance of such schools. From this have resulted endowment funds amounting to $12,000,000, with $8,000,000 worth of land not yet sold. Later acts of Congress, the Hatch Act

Agricultural Education 7

effective in 1887; Morrill Act, 1890; Adams Act, 1906; and Nelson Act, 1907, have appropriated sums of regularly increasing amounts which in 1912 aggregate $80,000 annually for the agricultural colleges and experiment stations of each state.

By June 30, 1909, the end of the fiscal year, there had been paid to the land-grant colleges by the Federal Government an approximate total of $23,000,000.

Although the colleges for several years derived their principal support from the income of the grants of land, the Morrill and later acts have proved such a spur to the states that a large number appropriate sums each year amounting to many times the aid received from the federal treasury.

This is strikingly shown by the fact that the total federal aid given the land-grant colleges for all purposes for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, amounted to $2,641,006.63 while the total income from state appropriations amounted to $10,172,- 559.48, making a grand total of $12,813,566.11."

An agricultural college exists in every state and territory except Alaska either separately,^ in connection with the state university,* or as a part of a semi-public institution.®

The value of all property of the land-grant colleges in June 30, 1909, was $111,882,686.96, including permanent funds amounting to $34,285,131.71, and their total income was $18,- 082,853.55. Out of 28,686 white collegiate students, 7,038 were in agricultural courses of all kinds or home economics, while 10,409 were in corresponding " short courses."^" The enrollment in the engineering courses increased 14 per cent from

'Office of Experiment Stations Report, 1909.

^Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington — 26.

'Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, — 18.

•Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, — 5.

"Office of Experiment Stations Report, 1908, p. 192. Does not include the few colored students.

1906 to 1907, while that of the agricultural courses increased 25 per cent." Using comparable data in the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1908, the increase in the enrollment in the engineering and purely agricultural courses is 10 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.^^

In the following year we find a decrease in the gain in both courses, with the disparity growing greater. The increase in the enrollment in the agricultural courses was 14 per cent, while the enrollment in engineering courses was practically at a standstill. ^^

The primary purpose and function of the experiment station is research, invesigating both general and local problems. These stations are attached to the state agricultural colleges except in Ohio and Georgia, where they are separate and in different localities. Separate stations also exist in many states for the study of special problems, and there are stations in Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and Guam. When established as departments of the colleges, part of the time of the staff is available for instruction.

The disbursements from the United States Treasury to the states and territories for agricultural experiment stations under the so-called Hatch and Adams acts of 1887 and 1906 amounted for the year ending June 30, 1909, to $1,248,000.00.^*

Present Agencies of Agricultural Education The earliest organized form of agricultural education is to be found in the farmers' clubs and societies started in the older states at a very early day, and later in the arrangements now generally known as farmers' institutes, by which speakers were provided through a central authority, either for these local societies, or for general public meetings. We find the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting Agriculture as early as 1785.

" Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1907, p. 871.

" Report of Office of Experiment Stations, 1909, p. 226.

Agricultural Education g

The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agricuhure tried, as early as 1796 and 1800, to act as a medium for the exchange of ideas and discoveries in agriculture and for their spread throughout the state. Stock exhibits in the state gave rise to various societies in the first decade of the nineteenth century. These societies were responsible for the efforts to introduce agriculture into the Massachusetts schools already mentioned. In New York almost from the beginning of the century to the establishment of the College of Agriculture at Cornell in 1868, speakers were furnished to local clubs by the State Agricultural Society. The first agricultural society in New Hampshire, so far as known, worked under a charter granted in 1814. The county societies received state aid from 1817 to 1820. The Maine legislature in 1832 voted premiums to the various agricultural societies ; and the required reports of the exhibitors were printed in the Maine Farmer, and were discussed by the farmers' clubs throughout the state.

State boards of agriculture, organized under one name or another toward the middle of the century and after, have served as central bodies to direct farmers' institutes, manage state fairs, carry on investigations and tests, and protect farm interests from various forms of pests and injury. The 44 states and territories reporting for the year ending June 30, 1909, show an aggregate of 15,535 half-day sessions in 5,014 institutes, addressed by 1,130 state speakers and possibly three times as many more local speakers. The cost of these institutes amounted to $328,660.86.^^ Almost 40 per cent of the state lecturers hold college degrees, and another 16 per cent have taken partial college courses.^'®

Since 1903, federal aid, other than financial, has been extended to the state institutes through a " farmers' institute specialist," attached to the Office of Experiment Stations.

Akin to these are the various activities of the agricultural

"Yearbook, Department of Agriculture, 1909, p. 137. " Based on data in History of Fanners' Institutes in the United States, by John Hamilton, Bull. 174, Office of Experiment Stations,Hp. 7.

lo Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools

colleges. They conduct " short courses " of from one week to several months, during the winter, which are open to all, offer correspondence courses, and run traveling schools, such as the so-called " corn specials," " alfalfa trains," etc. This unique form of school is a train of several cars fitted up as small museums, lecture rooms, and quarters for the instructors. Stops are made at small stations and cross-roads on the railroad according to an advertised schedule for a short time varying from several minutes to a few hours. Another form of college extension work is the boys' club contests for the exhibition of corn, cotton, or other produce of local importance, held in the various counties of the state, while the corresponding girls' home economics clubs make appropriate displays. The University of Illinois inaugurated the plan of having the prizes take the form of trips to the university during the winter short course.

While the government funds are distributed to the agricultural colleges by the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture acts as the great clearing house for the activities of the colleges and experiment stations, prosecutes extensive scientific investigations at home and abroad, and seeks to control or lessen disasters of interstate importance to agricultural interests, such as the cotton-boll weevil and the foot-and-mouth disease. These various reports and findings are issued as regular or special publications of the department.

No less wonderful than the development of the agricultural college has been the rapid growth within the present decade of the agricultural movement in the elementary and secondary schools of our public school system. Instruction in the rudiments of agriculture is required in the elementary schools of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, fifteen in all.^^

^' From reports of state superintendents to the author and the United States Department of Agriculture. See Annual Report Office of Experiment Stations, 1906, p. 271 and Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1919, vol. i, pp. 276-277.

Agricultural Education ii

There seems to be no data at present upon which to base even an approximate estimate of the number of children receiving instruction of this sort in elementary schools.

There are many private institutions of special character offering instruction along agricultural lines. These are, for the most part, of secondary grade, or of mixed secondary and elementary grade, although some of the denominational schools do work of college grade outside of the agriculture. Some are benevolent institutions of unique character, as the Mount Hermon School, founded by D. L. Moody, at Mount Hermon, Mass. ; the Baron De Hirsch School at Woodbine, N. J.; Hampton Institute; Dr. Washington's famous experiment at Tuskegee, and others. Agricultural work of some sort is coming to hold a large place in the occupational instruction of many orphanages, corrective institutions, and other charitable enterprises.^^ It is a question in the case of some of these how far the work is consciously used as an instrument for the education of higher mental processes, and how exclusively it is confined to routine manual labor incidental to the operation of lands belonging to the school.

For the purpose of this bulletin, the secondary schools may be divided roughly into the following types : ( i ) The general, public high school. (2) The private academy, which still survives occasionally alongside of the public high school and bids for support from the same clientage, but which more often performs the functions of a high school for the community. The schools of this type that teach agriculture may not number more than a dozen, and for many purposes of this study, may be considered as belonging in the same class with the publiq high school. In these non-specialized schools, the time given to agriculture may vary from a four-week " normal course " to a four-year course. The courses are usually a half or a full year in length, elective or required. (3) The technical high school of agriculture, which exists primarily to give instruction in the agricultural sciences and a certain familiarity

** J. R. Jewell, Agricultural Education, pp. 64, 65, 79, 83, and 84.

with the art of farming. The non-agricultural studies may vary from three-fourths to five-sixths of the time in a given term or year in some schools, down to a proportion as low as a tenth of the time in certain terms of other schools. So that the line of demarcation between these and the one extreme of the general public high school is sometimes one of name and organization only. This will be discussed more fully in Chapter VI. (4) A type of special school giving agricultural work of secondary grade, is the teachers' training school, whether maintained by the state, county, or town. The output of the state normal schools is largely absorbed by the elementary schools of cities and towns where agriculture is not taught, and where it has practically no influence on the nature-study given. The work of the state normal schools is largely important in this study for its bearing on the rural high school teacher problem, but is too large a subject to be considered in this study.