to teach for that length of time in the rural or ungraded schools. These certificates may be renewed for another three years, provided the holder can give evidence of having taught successfully. The Dunn County Normal School, one of the first to be established, has been in operation for eight years, and it is reported that there is scarcely a rural school in the county that is not taught by its graduates. It is apparently only a question of time and legislative action before practically all the counties of the State will have such schools. The Wisconsin county normal or training schools are among the best institutions yet developed in this country for the direct training of teachers for local rural schools. They are organized for a specific purpose. The salaries are now as good as in the State normal schools. In Menomonie, Wausau, and Marinette the county normal school is in the same building with the county agricultural school; the instructor in agriculture in the latter school takes the normal school students for work in agriculture, and the normal school reciprocates by giving an equivalent amount of academic work to the agricultural students. This tends to set a standard for the pedagogical instruction in such other normal schools as are not fortunate enough to be in direct connection with a school of agriculture. The course of study in the normal schools is now two years, or high school graduates may take a one-year course. A well-known educator of Wisconsin writes that "the schools have so thoroughly approved themselves to school officials and to the public generally in the counties where they have been in existence that it is almost impossible for a person to get a position in the counties where these schools are located who has not had at least the work which the training offers." The work in agriculture in these normal schools is as yet not large, but it will increase. The course of study in the Richland County Training School is here given as an illustration of the content of the work, as all these schools have similar curricula:

Second year of the two-year course, or the one-year course for those prepared

After having taught in a rural school for a time, it is to be expected that most of the graduates who desire to continue to teach will enter State normal schools or other institutions, and prepare for city school work. The rural schools do not yet offer sufficient attractions to secure well-prepared teachers for a long tenure.

(c).—HIGH SCHOOLS AND TRAINING CLASSES.

It is often urged that high schools give instruction in agriculture as a part of their general course for the purpose of fitting teachers in the subject. It is very doubtful, however, whether we should really look to the ordinary graduates of high schools for rural teachers. It requires more than the usual maturity, and considerable experience in affairs, to handle a rural elementary school effectively; and if a direct appeal is to be made to the farming constituency on the basis of agricultural work in the school, the teacher must be sure of his practical ground. Again, the high schools are not professional schools, and are not organized for normal work. The teachers that may be expected from them are mostly women. Agriculture should be introduced into the high school for its educational value. It will then constitute a good ground work for later training in education in a training class or elsewhere.

Another means of fitting teachers for rural elementary schools is in training classes developed in high schools or other institutions. These agencies have been widely adopted, but opinion as to their ultimate value seems to be divided. They are usually organized specially to meet rural school conditions. They are commonly connected with an accepted high school. The course of study covers one year or more. The students may or may not be high school graduates. Usually the work covers the elementary syllabus of the State, and this syllabus may contain agriculture. The successful completion of the course certifies the student to teach in certain of the schools. Agriculture is often a regular part of the course of study in these

classes. In Michigan "elementary agriculture" is in the fourth quarter of the year's course in the "County normal training classes." In Nebraska a very full two-semester course in agriculture, with laboratory work, is provided for "Normal training in high schools." This normal training in Nebraska is given in the eleventh and twelfth grades. "Credit for such training shall be given upon the completion of the prescribed course in normal training and the regular high school course of study."

A canvass of an apparently representative high school training class in one State showed four members to be high school graduates and nine to have had considerable high school work. Six of them were from farms and considered themselves to be fairly well qualified to teach some of the subjects relating to farming. The ages ranged from 17 to 22, the average being 19. All were women.

A further inquiry in the same State showed that 345 out of 470 training class students had spent most of their lives on the farm. Of this number, 322 considered themselves capable of teaching agriculture, but it should be said that agriculture teaching has not yet been introduced practically in that State. The ages of these students, nearly all women, range from 17 to 34 years, the average being 21 years.

No general opinion can be expressed on the efficiency of training class work in the fitting of persons to teach agriculture, for everything depends on the organization of the enterprise, the safeguards thrown about it, the age, experience, and qualifications of the students, the extent of the agricultural work, and the way in which it is taught. These classes, of one kind and another, are now sending out very many teachers to the rural schools. Their great handicap is that they themselves can not secure teachers properly qualified to give instruction in agriculture. No real preparation of training class students to teach the agriculture of a syllabus can be expected unless the teacher of the class has himself had good preparation in the subject.

(D).—SEPARATE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS.

The county and other schools of agriculture and domestic science that have lately been organized have thus far confined their energies to regular agricultural or industrial work; but many persons expect that they will also become important centers for the training of teachers for elementary and secondary schools. If they enter this field, it is a question whether they will not be in danger of alienating their regular farming support, unless they can command more resources than are now in sight. These schools are organized chiefly to supply a direct agricultural need. It will require considerable increase in funds if they hold this field and also enter another. It

is expected that these schools, of all others, will send youth directly back to the farms. In Wisconsin, where there has been experience in both agricultural and normal work, the two functions are separated; and this would seem to be the logical result for all States.

(E).—SPECIAL FOUNDATIONS.

Various institutions on private or semiprivate foundations, and not a regular part of public school enterprises, offer facilities for teachers to prepare in agriculture and kindred subjects. A marked example of this group is the Macdonald Institute at the Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, Canada. "Its equipment and accommodation is ample to furnish long and short courses in home economics, nature study, and manual training-the last two for teachers, male and female, and the home economics for farmers' daughters and other young women who desire to learn the theory and practice of cooking, ventilation, general housekeeping, laundry work, sewing, dressmaking, millinery, home decoration, etc." Summer courses are provided at Guelph; also a one-year normal course "to provide instructors fitted to carry on the work of nature study and school gardens in a group of rural schools, in a large consolidated school, or in an agricultural high school." The new Macdonald College, near Montreal, will have a profound influence on the teaching of country life subjects.

The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Virginia (a parental type of others in the South), provides normal training for negroes and Indians. The year for agricultural students is twelve months, with a vacation of a few days or weeks only. At the close of the academic year class-room work stops, but each student is given work in the different divisions of the department, where he can get experience in planning and directing labor and field operations and in assuming responsibility. At the same time he is given instruction in the best methods of managing labor. Actual class-room work under normal methods, and practical field work, seem to fill a great need in fitting the students for teaching what they have acquired in the class room.

Students of Hampton who design to teach receive, before being. graduated, four months' instruction in psychology and the principles of teaching, four hours per week, and also engage for four months in actual teaching in the class room. The student teaches all of the common school subjects of the State of Virginia. A large school garden affords opportunity for the teacher students to work with children in the open during April, May, October, and part of November. For the winter season, an indoor course in nature study and agriculture supplements the outdoor work. Post-graduate students

receive two months' training in teaching classes in the training school. These students teach agriculture and elementary science. They plan their lessons, teach children to work in the garden, and conduct field trips.

(F).—EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS AND TEACHERS' COLLEGES.

Much is to be expected of schools and departments of education in universities in the preparing of teachers for the higher ranges of public school teaching in agriculture. This is particularly true when a college or department of agriculture is comprised in the same university. In such case a four-year course can be assembled, involving two years of sound general scientific study, followed by two years in which the study of agriculture and related subjects is combined with training in education, all having special reference to high school and normal school problems. This would involve the modification of some of the regular instruction in the agricultural departments, or, preferably, new courses in them to meet the special needs of teachers. Professional schools of education that do not have regular agricultural connection may well cooperate with a neighboring college of agriculture by incorporating a year, more or less, of the work of such college as a part of its own course of study for those who desire to prepare specially for agriculture teaching. Teachers College of Columbia University in this way catalogues certain courses of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University.

Following is the statement of Teachers College in respect to the cooperation mentioned above (1908):

Agriculture in high schools.-The rapid development of agricultural instruction in many public schools is creating a demand for specially trained teachers. It is the consensus of opinion of school officers that for such instruction there is need of teachers who have been thoroughly trained in general sciences, biology, in particular, with its application to agriculture, and also in the principles of education. Many agricultural colleges give the subject-matter which is needed, but they do not deal with the educational applications. In order to combine the advantages of an agricultural college with those of a strictly educational institution a plan of cooperation has been arranged between Teachers College and the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, whereby students preparing for special work as teachers of agriculture may take the appropriate courses in the science of agriculture at Cornell University (especially principles of agronomy, horticulture, and animal husbandry) and then study the educational problems at Teachers College.

As already stated, it is desirable that agriculture should be combined with nature study and biology, or with nature study and physical science. Such combinations may be made by candidates for the bachelor's and master's degrees at Teachers College. The intimate relation of elementary agriculture to biology and nature study makes it desirable that their educational aspects should be involved in the same courses. Hence the student giving especial attention to agriculture will arrange a course at Teachers College as suggested above for biology and nature study; but having had previous special work in