Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1910-02-17
AGRICULTURAL
EDUCATION
THE STUDY OF AGRICULTURE, IN
THE SCHOOLS WILL ADVANCE
THE FARMING INTERESTS OF
THE STATE. ACCOUNT OF A vi.
SIT TO THE cokATo SCHOOL,

THE STATE. ACCOUNT OF A vi.
SIT TO THE cokATo SCHOOL,
Let no one think that the movement
for practical education receives its
impetus from the politicians. Not a
bit of it. Like every other reform. it
comes from the people and is forced
upon the politicians. The demand has
become SO insistent-the sentiment so
pronounced, that these, being compell-
ed to take it up, are now putting them
selves in the lead and preparing, un-
der the name of State development, or
conservation, or some other phrase
more or less happily coined, to claim
all the credit and reap the rewards for
rousing the farmers from the lethargy
into which they are assumed to have
sunk.
The fact is the people-farmers,
business men and others-have never
been quite satisfied with the kind of
teaching their children have been get
ting in the high SCHOOLS. There have
been too many fads. Too little of a
practical nature has been taught.
When the children graduated they had
not acquired much knowledge that
they could make use of at once. The
teachers after while came to realize
that something was wrong-that the
schools were neither doing the work
nor giving the satisfaction they
should. The thoughtful among them
determined to find out what was
wrong. BY and by they learned. A
league of EDUCATORS, backed up by
strong public sentiment, appealed to
the legislature to provide a remedy.
1t took the form of the Putnam bill.
The high schools of the State are
fortunate in having a State superin-
tendent who is enlisted heart and soul
in the work of providing practical in
struction for boys and girls. Profes.
sor Aiyton is working in season and
out of season with school boards, with
superintendent of schools, with teach
ers, with representative men wherever
he meets them, to so organize the high
schools, which are his special charge,
and the consolidated rural school, that
provision may be made in them for
the teaching of agriculture, of manual
training and OF household economics
He is meeting with a degree of sue
cess that is intensely gratifying. He
predicts that at the next session of
the legislature it will be face to face
with a demand ON the part of not
less than 100 high schools to be per-
mitted to take advantage of the Put
nam law. In that law provision was
only made to aid twenty Schools to
employ instructors in the practical!
branches referred to.
See what they did at Cokato. Coka-
to, which is in Wright county, has had
a high school for three or four years,
possibly more. The enrolment in
1908 had reached fifty-seven. Last
summer it was designated by the high
school board as one of the ten school:
to operate under the Putnam act. The
superintendent and board members
proceeded to canvas the surrounding
country. They INDUCED thirteen ru-
raj districts to associate with the
law. The farmers of these districts
taxed themselves 81 $50 year to take
advantage of a practical school. The
territory tributary to the school now
comprises two and one-half townships.
The school enrolment has jumped
from go to $50. In addition to the
superintendent, John Monroe and two
instructors, who comprised the teach
ing force last year, the associated dis
trict has employed three men teach
ers, Edwin Maryland, director Of agri-
culture, A. H. Liedenberg, who teaches
in the school shop, and Miss Daisy S.
E a r. - IS
Hone, who teaches cooking and sew
ing. They pay them liberal salaries
not all they are worth to them possi-
bly,, but all they feel now they can af-
ford. @z-%s a
January 81 of the current year a
demonstration was given of the work
done. For one thing that day the
State superintendent of high schools
visited Cokato Then other districts
contemplating organizing an agricul-
tural department wanted to know how
to set about it and whether the much
heralded practical education was
worth while. Superintendent Aiyton's
word to them was: Don't rely on
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