FIG. 5.-Graphs showing the amount of time devoted to each class of stock, by the high schools of one state, as compared with the value of the stock in the county. Upper bar is the time. Lower bar is the valuation. (Study by Sherman Dickinson.)

state department of education, your state and county board of education and local board so far as they apply to the curriculum and particularly to the agricultural curriculum. If any of these or other authorities have arranged courses of study or outlines in agriculture, obtain them. Obtain curricula and exercises from the United States Bureau of Education, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and U. S. Federal Board for Vocational Education, all of Washington, D. C., and from your state college of agriculture and the college or department of education of your State University. In many of the states the normal schools have rendered valuable service by preparing curricula in agriculture suitable for the rural schools and for the elementary grades of the town schools. If such courses have been prepared by the normal schools of your state or those in your region it will be well to obtain them for assistance in organizing your curriculum. If these can be made to apply to your local agriculture, use them, rejecting such portions as do not. If no applicable and adequate curriculum is obtainable, develop one yourself with the approval of the proper administrative officers, utilizing such assistance from the sources mentioned above and from books, pamphlets, and other references as are of value. Remember that only by basing your selection of curriculum material largely upon its applicability to the type of local farming can the greatest values be obtained from teaching vocational agriculture.

As a standard for guidance each teacher, whether in rural school, grade or town school, or high school, should have the curriculum prepared by the Committee on Agriculture of the National Education Association Commission on Reorganization of Secondary Education, which is published by the U. S. Bureau of Education. The arrangement of this curriculum is briefly as follows:

Agronomy, one year; animal husbandry, including dairying and poultry, one year; horticulture, soils, farm engineering, and farm management, one-half year each. This sequence and time allotment are for the schools in the regions of diversified farming and should be changed to be adapted to any special type of farming or modified to meet the needs of schools unable to spend that amount of time upon agriculture. In making such modifications, attention should be given to the type of local agriculture, the natural interests of pupils, the pedagogical sequence of the subjects, correlations with other portions of the curriculum and the relative administrative adaptability of the subjects to the conditions at the school, and, if necessary, to the teacher's preparation on the

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different topics. Essential adjuncts to the curriculum are the home project and the extension work, which are also treated in the report of the committee.

Special Organization in the Rural School.-In the rural school where pupils are few, classes many, recitation periods short, the teacher's knowledge of agriculture not that of an expert, and therefore special preparation of each agricultural lesson almost a necessity and the teacher's time for preparing a lesson brief, the best plan of organization is to have only one class in agriculture in any one term. The members of this should be the pupils of the eighth grade, the seventh grade, the sixth grade and such other pupils as because of nationality or special interest should be allowed to pursue the study.

Three-year Rotation for Rural Schools.-The curriculum should then be distributed over three years, one year of which is taught each school year. For example, suppose it were decided to include in one year of the curriculum the study of the crops of the field, garden, and orchard; in another year, the animals of the farmhorses, cattle, hogs, sheep, poultry, including the various animal products such as milk, butter, cheese and eggs; and in a third year the mechanical work on a farm, planning, arranging and beautifying the farm and farm home, simple farm records and accounts, good roads, community needs and improvements, and similar topics. During the school year 1920-1921, the pupils in grades 6, 7, and 8 would study the agriculture of the crop year of the curriculum; during the school year 1921–1922, the pupils who were that year in grades 6, 7, and 8 would study the agriculture of the animal year of the curriculum; and during the school year 1922-1923, the pupils who were that year in grades 6, 7, and 8 would study the other year of the agriculture curriculum. Then in the school year 1923-1924, the crop year would be studied again, the other two years following in succession. Through this plan each pupil (when the plan is fully in operation) would obtain three years' instruction in agriculture, but the teacher would have only one class in agriculture in any one year, and would prepare herself for only onethird of the curriculum during any one year.

When such a plan is in operation in a county or a state, all the forces, including public interest, are concentrated upon the special work for that year, and the results are greatly improved thereby.

The above distribution of topics within each of the three years is not essential. Some of the crops, some of the animals, and some of the mechanics, and farm and community improvement topics

may be put in each of the three years, and the plan be administered equally well.

Special Organization in the Grades of the Town School. Since pupils in the town schools, due to greater regularity of attendance, are, on the average, younger in the same grade, it is better to confine the agriculture work here to the two upper grades, the curriculum being two years instead of three years in length. If classes are small the pupils of the two grades may be united and half of the curriculum taught to them each alternate year of school, thereby saving time and labor for the teacher. If classes are of normal size or larger, both years of the curriculum can be taught each school year, one to the seventh grade and one to the eighth.

FIG. 6.-Appropriate styles of working garments worn by boys in agriculture and girls in domestic science. (G. S. Boggan, Ark.)

In a school where there is but one seventh grade class and one eighth grade class, and only the boys take agriculture (the girls taking home economics or some other study at the same hour), combining the boys of both grades into one class is better administration (Fig. 6).

Special Organization in the High School. Since high school agriculture is a subject requiring frequent laboratory work and since high school administration is organized on the basis of double periods for laboratory work, it is impossible for one teacher of agriculture to teach the entire four years of the agriculture curriculum during the same year and perform the other duties necessarily connected with agricultural teaching. If the number of pupils studying agriculture is great enough to require four classes, an additional teacher of agriculture should be employed.

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If the agronomy course is to be taught every year and the animal husbandry course every year, and the remaining courses each once in two years, by combining all the agricultural students of the highest two years into one class, one teacher can conduct the classes if he does not teach other classes in the grades or special groups such as the teachers' training classes in the high school.

If the number of pupils in the high school agriculture classes is small enough to permit it, the agronomy course can be taught to the combined freshman and sophomore classes one year and the animal husbandry course taught the next year to the combined

FIG. 7.-Young women as well as young men may pursue projects in apple growing. Here they are having their first practice in a neighbor's orchard.

freshman and sophomore classes of that year. In like manner the juniors and seniors may be combined into one class in agriculture each year, one year studying soils and horticulture and the next farm mechanics and farm management. With this arrangement the teacher of agriculture will be able to teach some agriculture in the grades below the high school and also one special class, if the number of such recitations be not too great, and still have some time for community work.

All of the above arrangements provide for the high school pupil obtaining four years of agriculture work in the high school without so overloading the teacher as to prevent his attending to his other essential duties as an agriculture specialist.