The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1910-07-20
AGRICULTURAL HIGH SCHOOL:
WHAT AND WHY IT is.
"A Discussion by Prof. w. III. Hand. at
The Rural Life Conference at the
University Of Virginia.


definite meaning to the term agricul-
ture when we speak Of teaching it.
What is the agriculture that we wish
to teach? Which subjects are agri-
cultural? In the first place, we need
to differentiate clearly between ele-
mentary nature study and essential
" agricultural subjects.
However, I am here concerned
chiefly with agriculture in the high
school, 1 believe that agricultural
subjects have a genuine educational
value. If the study of mathematical
formulas and physics formulas has
an educational value, why not the
study if fertilizer formulas? But 1
cannot subscribe to the doctrine that
a teacher can teach agriculture with
out any special training for it. We
40 not expect teachers to teach Ger
man without b knowledge of the sub
Ject, nor physics without a knowledge
of that subject. Why should we ex-
pect teacher to handle agriculture
without some special knowledge of
1t? Persistence in this doctrine is
going to make us more dissatisfied
with the results Of the teachings in
our schools than ever before.
In response to an urgent demand
for the better equipment of farmers.
and for some means by which farm
ers' soons and daughters may be kept
on the farm, the agricultural high
school has been proposed as a pana-
cea Such would prove delusion. It
would be as wise to establish schools
for the sons of physicians with the
vain hope of keeping them all in
doctors shops, or to set up schools
Tor the sons of lawyers with the hone
u keeping them in lawyers offices.
The sons and daughters of farmers
VIII remain on the farm whenever
farming is made profitable and at
tractive. Farming will be profitable
whenever sufficient business energy
and sagacity are put into it, What
the farmer most needs is a high de-
gree Of general intelligence and busi
ness training; things in which he has
been too long lacking. due to the fact
that business principles and wide in
telligence have not been regarded as
necessary to farming. When farm
Ing shall have become profitable il
will then be attractive; and when the
farmer by his intelligence and his
training is able to cope with his COM
mercial friend, his lawyer friend, and
his doctor friend, he will be satisfied
with his lot. When the farmer lives
in as comfortable home as that of his
town neighbor. has the conveniences
of his town acquaintances, and is as
we'll informed as his town business
competitors, the farm will hold him a
royal and independent citizen. The
farmer does not so much object to
hard work. The hoe and the plough
are not SO distatsteful to him; his OBJ
lection to them is that they are the
tools of the unframed man, the en-
belms of unskilled toll and ship-shod
business.
The farmer needs skilled hands
and vocational training, to be sure,
but he needs a trained mind and
cultured mind as well. To give him
only vocational training would be
as great blunder as to give him no
vocational training. He needs both.
To establish separate high schools to
teach agriculture to farmers boys
and girls would be a grave mistake.
AS yet we have not sufficient money
to maintain a single kind Of high
school. To undertake to maintain
dual system Of high schools would be
folly. The agricultural high school
would not give the framer the broad
and liberal education which he needs
The farmer himself would soon dis
cover it. In fact, I have found not
few boys in these schools, free to
| confess that they realize that their
education is not so broad as that of
the boys in the regular academic high
schools. Instead of dissipating our
efforts in undertaking to maintain
two kinds Of half-supported high
schools, let us increase the efficiency
| of the present type OF high school,
put into their courses of study such
| subjects as are necessary to train
boys and girls for farm life on the
hlgheSt intellectual and business plan.
Let us put into these high schools the
farmers boy and girl, the lawyers
| boy and girl, the business mans son
and daughter. In the same high
| school will be taught the culture