Typical specimens of grains in head (Fig. 179) and in seed, weeds, and weed seeds in convenient containers may usually be purchased from the State College of Agriculture or the school supply houses. Pictures of plants, animals, machines, buildings, and farm equipment should be obtained even if they must be purchased. Provide many agricultural placards. A duplicator such as a rotating mimeograph or a jelly pad hectograph should be in every school. They will be useful in preparing survey topics, preparing special score cards for farms, for projects, for surveys, preparing outlines, programs, reviews, lesson plans, and lists of references. Other Apparatus.-A good set of scales is so necessary at all times that the agriculture department should be supplied independent of the other departments. Many other supplies and some apparatus can be used coördinately with other departments. In addition to the special apparatus mentioned in Chapters V to XII, inclusive, there should be a sufficient supply of wide-mouth bottles and screw-top bottles, of various sizes; glass and earthenware jars and crocks; cups, plates, trays, scoops; and wood and metal containers of various capacities. Adapt Equipment to Local Use.-Not every school can afford the space and equipment just described, though it is what every good school of average size should have. Each teacher must study his curriculum, his classes, and his funds and come as near as possible to the ideal equipment. If agriculture is to be introduced into the school gradually, he may provide each year only those things most essential for that year's work, adding other necessities as other years of work are added. When all the most urgently needed features have been obtained, additional desirable ones may be added. Very helpful suggestions for equipment will be found in Professor W. G. Hummel's "Materials and Methods in High-school Agriculture" (Macmillan) and Professor A. W. Nolan's "The Teaching of Agriculture" (Houghton, Mifflin). Every piece of furniture and apparatus should have a definite place, out of the way of the regular class work, but easily obtained for use, and should be kept there, clean and in good order. Administrative officers should see that no more equipment and apparatus are supplied a teacher than he is willing to care for properly. 3 See Appendix recipes. REFERENCES EXERCISES AND QUESTIONS 331 1. Draw to scale a plan for a group of agriculture rooms adapted to a school of your acquaintance stating briefly the demands of the curriculum and the school. 2. Lay out to scale the floor plan of the combined class-room and laboratory of the school used in exercise 1, showing the location of furniture, apparatus, windows, blackboards, doors, and water, gas, and light conditions. 3. Make to scale a floor plan of a practical school greenhouse, showing its relation to the high school building. 4. Prepare a card index or other list of the various livestock and registry associations in the United States including your state and local ones with the names and addresses of the secretaries, from whom valuable pictures and printed matter may be obtained. 5. Draw to scale an elevation of the shelving required for a storage room with which you are acquainted. 6. Draw to scale a seating plan for a certain class and laboratory room which you know. 7. Enumerate the advantages of having pupils do their class and laboratory work at the same table; also of having all pupils face the front of the room instead of having pupils facing each other. The disadvantages. 8. Make a rough sketch of a cabinet for holding ear corn samples to have them safe and convenient for study. 9. For what general equipment would you spend your first $200? (Give name and price of each article.) REFERENCES Lists of equipment of the kinds mentioned in this chapter may be obtained from the following sources (see also sources of lists in Appendix): Furniture, fixtures, and apparatus from the State Supervisor of Vocational Agriculture; the State College of Agriculture; the Agricultural Instruction Division, States Relation Service, U. S. D. A.; and the school supply houses. Specimens of plants from the State College of Agriculture; the U. S. D. A.; commercial seed houses; Boards of Trade that deal in the various farm crops; and the school supply houses. Pictures of animals from the various livestock registry associations. Pictures (and occasionally small models) of machines from the manufacturers. Miscellaneous special exhibits of manufactured products from the firms manufacturing them (obtain list from the Agricultural Instruction Division, States Relation Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture). Farmers' Bul. 586, Collection and Preservation of Plant Materials. CHAPTER XVI HOW TO TEACH THROUGH CHARTS, SLIDES, AND FILMS Growing Importance. That "seeing is believing" has long been accepted as sound psychology. The sense of sight is one of the two major senses concerned in the learning process. Its value in object teaching and in textbook study have long been appreciated. Inventions and improvements have given a new significance to visual instruction. To the blackboard and the map, the only generally used means of visual instruction of the generation just past, have been added charts, stereopticons and slides, opaque projectors, motion picture films, stereographs, and other means of visual instruction for groups. All of these are especially helpful in teaching agriculture, particularly when real objects cannot be present for class use. The agriculture teacher who is not prepared to utilize these vital aids in his teaching is poorly equipped to meet modern demands and should lose no time in fitting himself to use them with skill and efficiency. The school which is not making provision to supply its agriculture department with the materials needed for carrying on this type of teaching is handicapping its pupils in their efforts to obtain the best in education. Charts are so easily made, pictures, slides, views, and the machines with which to project them are so numerous, effective, and relatively inexpensive that there is little reason for a school not having any or all of them for use especially in its agriculture classes. Motion picture projectors are expensive and film service both quite expensive and poorly organized at present; but as the enterprise is still in its infancy and undergoing very rapid development, schools may look for motion pictures to become both a practical and a relatively cheap means of visual instruction in the near future. Both teachers and school officers should not only be ready for that day when it arrives, but in the meantime should hasten its coming, whenever funds can be procured, by introducing it into their schools in the form of definite visual teaching. Blackboard.—Few teachers make the most efficient use of the blackboard. Tables, drawings, diagrams, outlines, and similar representations for temporary use placed on the board before the pupils assemble may mark the difference between a superior lesson and one that is only mediocre. Some agriculture and rural life stencils may be obtained1 and reproduced upon the board. During the recitation the live teacher not only has pupils work on the board but uses it freely as a means of illustrating his teachings. In addition to the permanent blackboards the teacher of agriculture should have one or two sliding blackboards at the front of the room not only to increase the amount of board space but to keep SILAGE MAKES CHEAP MILK IT TAKES LESS GRAIN 2 LOTS-4 COWS EACH-4 MO.-OHIO FIG. 183. This arrangement of the bar graph permits the economical arrangement of explanations, data in figures, and relative magnitudes. (After P. G. Holden.) obscured till needed certain material placed there before the recitation period. At least one (preferably more) slated cloth blackboard, mounted on wooden chart sticks or rollers, should be provided so that whatever is desired can be placed on it outside of the class-room and displayed at recitation time without loss of time. Both sides of the cloth being slated, a large amount of such work is made easily transportable from place to place. 1 P. G. Holden, Director Extension Department, Harvester Building, Chicago. Charts.—The chart is the most universally adaptable and uniformly effective and the most economical means yet discovered for concentrating the attention of a group of persons upon the thing to be taught (Fig. 183). It can be used in the class-room, in the laboratory, on the land laboratory, in a public assembly room, on the street, in a railroad car, in the field, at a picnic, a fair, a church service, a convention, or any other gathering, large or small, in natural light or artificial light, day or night, in sun or in shade. It requires neither special illumination nor inconvenient accessories. Made of proper materials, it may be destroyed after one use without great loss or may be used a thousand times with no other than the initial expense (Fig. 184). As the textbook is one of the best friends of the learner, so the chart should become one of the best friends of the teacher. It has special value to the teacher of agriculture because of being adapted not only to his class work in the school but also to his extension work in the community. Every teacher should know not only how to use charts but also how to make them, because much of the material he wishes placed upon them is local, or recent and changing. Not only should teachers make charts, but it is well to have students in high schools make them occasionally for use in reporting their projects or topics at community meetings, graduating exercises, or other public places. Equipment and Materials for Making Charts.—A chart board of the size of the largest chart to be made is the first essential. School charts are sometimes made four feet square, or even 3 x 4 feet; but as charts for public use should not be less than five feet square, a chart board of this size (or preferably six feet square) is desirable. It should be smooth, straight, and without elevations or depressions that will prevent an even impression being made upon the chart materials by the working tools. The board should be of some wood soft enough to receive thumb tacks and not inclined to warp. The pieces of which it is made should be matched and cleats so attached to the back as to provide for shrinking and swelling. If the school is willing to go to the additional expense, a "glued up" board can be purchased that will neither shrink nor warp. A relatively inexpensive chart board may be produced by making a rough foundation of common light wood and facing it with a piece of pulp board of superior quality. The chart board should be located where there is good light on it and where shadows from the worker do not interfere with the work. A heavy straight-edge about two and one-half to three |