Synthetic teaching.—The analytic teaching of agriculture will not avail; we must have the synthetic also. Too long have we stopped short with analysis. We have come within sight of the promised land but have failed to go up and possess it. We have studied the skeleton of agriculture but have failed to endow it with life. We must keep before our eyes the picture of the little girl. We must feel that the quintessence and spirit of agriculture throbs through all the arteries of life. Here lies the field in which imagination can do its perfect work. Here is a subject in which the vitalized school may find its highest and best justification. By no means is it the only study that fitly exemplifies life, but, in this respect, it is typical, and therefore a worthy study. On the side of analysis the teacher finds the blade of grass to be a thing of life; on the side of synthesis she finds the blade of grass to be a life-giving thing. And the synthesis is no less in accord with science than the analysis.

The element of faith.—Then again agriculture and life meet and merge on the plane of faith. The element of faith fertilizes life and causes it to bring forth in abundance. Man must have faith in himself, faith in the people about him, and faith in his own plans and purposes to make his life potent and pleasurable. By faith he attaches the truths of science to his plans and thus to the processes of life; for without the faith of man these truths of science are but static. Faith gives them their working qualities. There is faith in the plowing of each furrow, faith in the sowing of the seed, faith in the planting of each tree, and faith in the purchase of each machine. The farmer who builds a silo has faith that the products of the summer will bring joy and health to the winter. By faith he transmutes the mountains of toil into valleys of delight. Through the eyes of faith he sees the work of his hands bringing in golden sheaves of health and gladness to his own and other homes.

Questions and Exercises

  1. In what ways is agriculture a typical study?
  2. Why was its importance not realized until recently?
  3. What educational agency in your state first reflected the need of scientific instruction in agriculture?
  4. The study of agriculture in the public school was at first ridiculed. Why? What is now the general attitude toward it?
  5. To what extent is the study of agriculture important in the city school? Is there another subject as important for the city school as agriculture is for the rural school?
  6. Mention some school subjects that are closely related to agriculture. Show how each is related to agriculture.
  7. Is Luther Burbank’s work to be regarded as botanical or as agricultural? Why? To which of these sciences do plant variation and improvement properly belong?
  8. In many schools agriculture and domestic science are associated in the curriculum. What have they in common to justify this?
  9. In the chemistry class in a certain school food products are examined for purity. How will this increase the pupils’ knowledge of chemistry?
  10. In a certain school six girls appointed for the day cook luncheon for one hundred persons, six other girls serve it, and six others figure the costs. Criticize this plan.
  11. Show how some particular phase of agricultural instruction may function in agricultural practice.
  12. What benefits accrue to a teacher from the study of a subject in its ramifications?
  13. In what respects is agriculture a noble pursuit? Compare it in this respect with law. How does agriculture lead to the exercise of faith? Teaching? Law? Electrical engineering?

CHAPTER XVII

THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY

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An analogy.—If we may win a concept of the analogy between the vitalized school and a filtration-plant, we shall, perhaps, gain a clearer notion of the purpose of the school and come upon a juster estimate of its processes. The purpose of the filtration-plant is to purify, clarify, and render more conducive to life the stream that passes through, and the function of the school may be stated in the same terms. The stream that enters the plant is murky and deeply impregnated with impurities; the same stream when it issues from the plant is clear, free from impurities, and, therefore, better in respect to nutritive qualities. The stream of life that flows into the school is composed of many heterogeneous elements; the stream that issues from the school is far more homogeneous, clearer, more nearly free from impurities, and, therefore, more conducive to the life and health of the community. The stream of life that flows into the school is composed of elements from all countries, languages, and conditions. In this are Greeks and barbarians, Jews and Gentiles, saints and sinners, the washed and the unwashed, the ignorant, the high, the low, the depraved, the weak, and the strong.

Life-giving properties.—The stream that issues from the school is the very antithesis of all this. Instead of all these heterogeneous elements, the stream when it comes from the school is composed wholly of Americans. A hundred flags may be seen in the stream that enters the school, but the stream that flows out from the school bears only the American flag. The school has often been called the melting-pot, in which the many nationalities are fused; but it is far more than that. True, somehow and somewhere in the school process these elements have been made to coalesce, but that is not the only change that is wrought. The volume of life that issues from the school is the same as that which enters, barring the leakage, but the resultant stream is far more potent in life-giving properties because of its passage through the school.