Special local schools for agriculture.[2]
I am committed to the idea that there should be strong local centers of interest in rural communities, for thereby we develop local pride and incentive. There are several ways, on the educational side, of developing local institutions and interest.
The first way is to make it possible and practicable for the existing public schools to introduce agriculture and domestic economy. I suggest that many or most localities would do better to develop the country-life work in the existing schools than to ask the legislature for a separate special school. We have only begun to understand what such redirected and expanded schools may accomplish.
Another means of securing local knowledge and developing local interest is by the establishing of demonstration farms and field-laboratories. It is doubtful whether a permanent demonstration farm in a community is desirable; in general, the demonstration may be temporary, depending on the presence in the community of some special difficulty. In some circumstances, the enterprise may amount to a local testing station. Enterprises of this sort are bound to take on great importance in the redirection of country life.
Local societies and organizations may be encouraged to take up educational and experiment work.
Departments of agriculture will probably be added by colleges or other educational institutions, and these will serve as local centers at the same time that they reach the larger field.
Again, a winter school or short-course of, say, a month's or two months' duration may be held in different parts of the state. The localities should coöperate in the expenses, thereby becoming partakers in the enterprise.
Eventually there should be an agricultural agent resident in every county, and perhaps even for smaller regions, whose office should be to give advice, to keep track of animal and plant diseases and pests and secure the services of experts in their control, to organize conferences, winter-courses, and the like, and otherwise to be to the agricultural affairs what the pastor is to religious affairs and the teacher to educational affairs. (See "The Training of Farmers," p. 257.)
Finally, we may ask the state to place a special school of agriculture in the locality, but only after it is clear that other means cannot produce the desired results. An unattached school of agriculture is not an easy thing to administer successfully, even at the best; and the difficulty would be all the greater if its care were to be confined to local boards, which would probably have small understanding of the peculiar educational requirements. It is probable that a state may wisely establish a very few special schools, but an educational program needs first to be worked out, a competent system of control must be found, and the people should know in advance what is involved. It is not enough merely that a locality desires a school: the larger question is the state's interest. In all local enterprises of this kind in which state aid is asked for, it ought to be understood that the locality itself is to coöperate in the securing of equipment and funds.