Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1906-12-12
LEARN BY DOING
IS THE NEW CRY
GREATER coNcRETENEss IN
GRADED SCHOOLS.
LESS TEXT; MORE WORK
Manual Train ng, Nature Study, Aeri.
culture and Home Economics Are
outerowths of New Creed-In
Township or County High Schools
Project Entirely Feasible.

The prevailing trend in modern ed
ucatlon is toward greater concrete
ness in the primary and secondary
schools. Learning by doing is the
cry. Less of the text book work,
more of the laboratory, the shop and
the school garden. Less of non-essen-
tails taught to give mental discipline
more of equally valuable disciplinary
work related to the lives and occupa-
tons of the pupils and their parents.
This is the creed of the up-to-date
educator, who is not bound hand and
foot to educational traditions and
heresies. This in the city means mau-
ual training, nature study, school gar
dening, bookkeeping, home econom
les. stenography and typewriting; in
the country it means nature study,
school gardening, agriculture, and
home economics.
But what of elementary agriculture
lis it feasible to teach this subject
in rural schools? In the one-room
rural school. with a poorly trained,
low-salarie1 teacher-no. In such d
school you viii find only the subjects
which can be passably we'll taught
from the text-book-with the text
book in hand and a finger marking
the place
On the other hand, in the rural con
solidated school, or the township or
county high school, where three or
more good teachers are employed, the
feasibility of teaching agriculture has
been demonstrated.
Let us visit one of these schools
township high school in the north
eastern part of Pennsylvania. Here
in the midst of a good general farm
ing and dairy country is the little
village of Waterford, on the outskirts
of which is the site of Fort lie Boeuf,
of French and Indian war fame. The
township of Waterford has a popula-
/ ton of 1,460, and about half of these
(770) reside in the village, which has
its own elementary school but uniies
with the township in supporting a
high school This high school. with
its three teachers and three courses
of study Language, scientific, and
agricultural) has ar enrolment of
so pupils, and 30 Of these are in the
agricultural course. This course in
cludes agriculture, five hours a week
for four years. The work of the frs
year is devoted 20 study of plant
organization. plant growth, plant
food reproduction, propagation, trans
planting. pruning, and uses of plants;
/ the second year to a study of field, ~.
chard, and garden crops; the third
year to domestic animals, dairying,
and soil physics and the fourth year
| to the chemistry of soils and of plant
and animal life Textbooks are used
in the class room; a small library Of
agricutul al reference books reports
and bulletins of the United States de-
partment of agriculture and expert
ment stations, and agricultural papers
contributed by the publishers, is in
almost constant use. and lectures OIL
agricultural subjects are given be-
fore the class and before the whole
school by the instructor in agricnl-
ture. who is an agricultural college
graduate. But the feature of instruc-
ton which chiefly distinguishes this
agricultural course from the ordinary
high school course is the prominence
given to the laboratory work and the
outdoor practicum. For the labora-
tory work there is no elaborate appa-
ratus. The pupils make much of their
apparatus, furnish their own reagent
bottles, and, moreover. use them. In
the plant-life course the pupils study
not elaborate and carefully prepared
drawings, but the plants themselves
with reference to their life history
and economic uses.
For the outdoor practcum the school
is unfortunate in having neither land
nor domestic animals or fowls, AMI
yet it has a wealth of Illustrative ma
terial all around it, Every good farm
within a ra 1irs of three Or four miles,
nearly every barn and poultry yard
in the village, butcher shops, and the
farm implement stores furnish costly
illustrative material and extend vast
~ the teaching 70. e of the high
school. The farmers and other own
ers Of good live stock either bring
their animals to the door of the school
house to be studied r. the class in
agriculture OF allow me class to go
to their barns and fields for this pur-
pose It is said to be a rare thing
for a good horse to come to the vii
lage and get away without being ex-
amined by the high school class in
animal husbandry
The writer was fortunate in bein {
the guest of the school one dav last
October and in having an opportunity
to listen to some of the recitations in
agriculture A class of IA boys and
six girls was studying animal hus-
bandry 1t had been organized only
three or four weeks, and yet the inter-
est manifested and the readiness with
which the boys and girls described the
beef type, the dairy type, and various
breeds of cattle. the mutton and wool
types of sheep, the principal breeds
Of draft horses, and some of the
standardized roadsters and trotters