(a) Agriculture.—At least 140 schools have well-equipped departments in agriculture, taught by graduates of standard agricultural colleges.

The agricultural course is a cumulative growth, beginning as nature study in the early grades. Much satisfactory work of this kind can be observed. Nature study is not taught as a separate subject, but leavens all subjects. This prepares the children for formal textbook work in agriculture, which generally begins with one period a week in the seventh grade and is continued through the eighth grade. The first-year high-school class ordinarily studies farm crops and the second-year class live stock. The best-equipped schools offer in their third and fourth years work in soils and farm management. In these schools the science courses are taking on more and more of the practical trend. Thus, for example, agricultural botany and agricultural chemistry are supplanting formal botany and chemistry.

The demand, at high salaries, for agriculture-college men to take charge of the new agricultural departments has attracted well-prepared instructors from many States. At this time 20 States and Canada are represented on the lists. All of them have added new inspiration and introduced new things. Mr. George B. Aiton, in speaking of the variety of work in the agricultural departments, says:

The work in farm crops varies properly in different parts of the State. Under the influence of Ames, to which we are much indebted, special work in corn leads off in the southern part of the State. In the Red River valley wheat comes first. The third place in classroom and laboratory attention is held by potatoes. The more enterprising instructors enrich schoolroom instruction by a careful study of elevators, flouring mills, and the growing crops of farmers. One instructor reports that his boys, 10 in number, were provided with bicycles, and did a large part of their study in the fields of the farmers within a radius of 6 miles. These are the boys that breakfasted on wienerwursts by the roadside one morning at 6 o'clock, surveyed, husked, and weighed a prize acre of corn, and were back in school by the middle of the forenoon. The activity displayed by boy scouts can be transferred to agriculture if the instructor knows how to lead.1

(b) School farms.-Under the law each school drawing special aid for agriculture must provide a school farm for experiment purposes. A study of these farms discloses extremes in equipment and upkeep. Many have good barns and sheds and own their own teams and necessary machinery. Some even have a limited number of cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry. This, however, is the exception. The classes in animal husbandry usually depend on neighboring farms for these first-hand studies. A number of instructors are able to make the farm crops pay for all outlays. At Spring Valley, mentioned above, the 16-acre farm netted last year a profit of nearly $200, but this is unusual. Where the school authorities are obliged to hire teaming

1 Twentieth An. Rep. State High Schools of Minn., 1913, p. 57.

done and have the farm at some distance from the school, the whole undertaking easily becomes burdensome. The success or failure of the school farm depends very largely on the degree of constructive ingenuity and tact of the agricultural instructor.

(c) Extension work.-The Minnesota system is broad enough to include the education of all the people, young and old. It works on the principle that education is a life process, and that all the educative machinery of the State shall be at the disposal of the public at all times to assist them solve their life problems. The extension

EXTENSION COURSE IN SEWING,

CHATFIELD ASSOCIATED SCHOOLS.

PURPOSE.

To afford young women who can not attend school the opportunity of pursuing a short course in sewing.

PLACE.

Sewing room in high-school building.

TIME.

The first and third Friday afternoons of each month, 1.15 to 3.30. The first classwill meet October 17, 1913.

OUTLINE OF COURSE.

The course in sewing will be as practical as possible and will consist of simple garment making, use of patterns, repairing, and a brief study of textiles.

At the request of the class the above course of study may be
subject to change.

All persons interested in the course should communicate with
Miss Clara M. Jacobson, director of the course, or with E. B.
Forney, superintendent of schools.

department of the State College of Agriculture may be considered at the head of the outward work of the schools. The county agricultural experts, of whom Minnesota is getting an increasing number, and the agricultural instructors of the high and graded schools also lend valuable assistance. The State-aided schools do their most active work in the formation of farmers' clubs, in giving advice in farm home construction, building silos, pruning and spraying orchards, cow testing, inoculation against hog cholera, milk testing, seed germination, holding farmers' institutes, and encouragement of new socialrecreational activities and cooperative enterprises.

Agriculture short courses play an important part in the new schools. They will be discussed later.

(d) Household economics.-None of the industrial departments is more popular than this. More than 12,000 students in State-aided village and rural schools take courses in some or all phases of household economics. The large consolidated high and grade schools offer complete courses, extending over eight years, usually beginning with the fifth grade. The associated schools and central schools in

the northern undivided districts do much to direct these courses in the small rural schools.

The classes in cookery waste little time on making candies and indigestible salads. The wholesome in food and everyday practical things in home life receive most attention. The course of study given below is from the consolidated school at Grand Rapids:

Grade 5. Model and plain sewing; one 90-minute period per week; method-discussion, demonstration, practical work by pupils.

Grade 6. Plain sewing, repairing, and textiles; one 90-minute period per week; method-same as for fifth grade.

Grade 7. Sewing and textiles; one 90-minute period per week; use of patterns, making aprons, corset covers, crochet work; method-discussions, demonstrations, and practical work of pupils.

Grade 8. Grade cooking; one 90-minute period per week; classification of foods; experiments with proteids, carbohydrates, and fat; practical work in cooking and serving.

First year, high school:

Cooking-Two 90-minute periods per week; planning of meals, use of left-overs; practical work in cooking and serving.

Food study-One 45-minute period per week; food studied according to the following outline-physical composition, chemical composition, distribution, methods of production, methods of preparation, digestion, absorption, food value, and cost.

Plain sewing-Three 45-minute periods per week; use of patterns; study of textiles and garment making. Garments made: Cooking apron, corset cover, drawers, nightgown, underskirt.

Second year:

Dress making-Seven 45-minute periods per week for 26 weeks; use of patterns; selection of materials and styles. Garments made: Plain waist, shirt-waist, skirt, woolen school dress, gingham school dress, afternoon dress.

Art needlework-Seven 45-minute periods per week for 6 weeks; art needlework stitches, and crochet; hemming table linen.

Spring millinery-Seven 45-minute periods per week for 6 weeks; making frames; covering frames; making and trimming hats.

Third year:

Advanced cooking and serving-Two 90-minute periods per week for 26 weeks. Home nursing-Two 90-minute periods per week for 6 weeks; recitation work, practical work with bandages.

Household management-Two 90-minute periods per week for 6 weeks; recitation work.

Dressmaking-Three 90-minute periods per week for 38 weeks; advanced work. Garments made; wash dress, wool dress, graduation dress, class-night dress. (d) Manual training.-In the best-equipped schools the work begins with the fifth grade and requires usually one double period a week throughout the last three years of the elementary school. In the high school more time is required; as a rule, one double period a day is necessary throughout the entire course. The manual-training shops are well equipped. Many schools have forge rooms, and even the rural schools in school associations and undivided districts are generally equipped with benches and tools.

There is a marked effort in these classes to include as much as possible of the great out-of-doors in the list of articles made. Mr. George B. Aiton, on his rounds of inspection, has encouraged this. He insists that, while the pupils have not, perhaps, devoted too much time to making articles of a purely domestic nature, such as Morris chairs, mission furniture, benches, stands, desks, chests, match scratchers, ironing boards, etc., they have not devoted enough time to

the rugged outside world. But a reaction has set in. As Mr. Aiton says:

The machine shops of our large school are delightfully masculine. Not a few instructors are launching out in a practical way. The younger boys are making sleds, toy windmills, waterwheels, bird houses, tent pins, athletic poles, and a variety of other articles that appeal to the mind of the active lad. In several schools I have noticed activity in the construction of poultry coops, crates, brooders, and nests. Flytraps and beehives are made in spring. Tool handles, ladders, nail boxes, tool chests, and saw horses are in evidence. The list of distinctively farm articles includes milking stools, bag holders, gates, feed racks, wagon poles, wagon jacks, wagon boxes, grain tanks, hay racks, neck yokes, and whiffle trees. The manual-training class assists the agricultural department by making tables and benches for the short course, as well as corn trees for drying seed corn, corn trays for use in judging corn, and germination boxes for seed corn. The blacksmith shop contributed a variety of latches, spikes, bolts, chisels, and hinges. Valuable instruction is given in laying out and cutting rafters and risers for stairways and in constructing barn models. I was pleased to hear one instructor say that if some farmer would dump the dimension stuff for a barn on the school grounds he would have the boys get out the framework for the entire building.'

Short courses for the whole community.-The winter short courses offered by the Putnam and Benson-Lee Schools are rapidly becoming a prominent feature in the new community schools. It is a species of continuation schools for people regularly beyond the reach of school. There is no maximum age limit. Students may enroll from 15 years of age, or thereabouts, up toward 99 years. Anyone who can profit by the courses is made welcome. The courses are 3, 4, 5, and 6 months in length, varying in different schools. These are regularly intended for youth of the community beyond school age. Six-day courses for the parents of the community are popular in many places during the last week of the regular short courses.

The time is chosen to suit the farmers. The courses begin in November, after the fall work is done, and close in March, before the rush of spring work begins. The school hours are from 10 o'clock a. m. to 3 o'clock p. m., which allows time for chores at home morning and evening.

The daily routine includes a general brushing up in the elementary subjects. Farm arithmetic and accounting hold prominent places. Farm law, special phases of agriculture, blacksmithing, carpentry, cooking, sewing, and other subjects are presented by enthusiastic. instructors, many of whom are secured solely for the short courses. Each student does the work he needs the most.

Says Mr. George B. Aiton:

It is not unusual to find an agricultural giant plying the trade of Vulcan at his ease one hour, while the next finds him perspiring over the sonorous page of a third reader. If any part of our work demonstrates that the Minnesota high-school system has finally got down to business, it is the winter short courses now going on in a hundred schools.

1 Twentieth An. Rept. State High Schools of Minn., 1913, p. 49.