Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/393

Rh attempting to popularize the subject by writing all of the science out of it. If it is not based upon the fundamental sciences it is not secondary but elementary, and, as such ignores the genetic stages of development usually represented by the high school adolescent. Therefore, if agriculture is to be made a secondary school subject it must be put on a secondary plane—that is, it must be made scientific by the utilization of the fundamental sciences. It should not be divorced from the high school sciences in order to precede them.

The deferring of the agricultural work in the high school until after the underlying sciences have been mastered will be at the very imminent risk of starving the peculiar vocational interest upon which its success depends. Investigations as well as experience show that the interest in vocation is born in adolescence and that the manual vocations normally precede the others. It is a maxim of education that to develop a useful instinct it should be exercised and directed during its nascent period. However judicious and far-sighted the plans of the teacher may be regarding the student's high school course, neither the student nor his parents may be safely left indefinitely in the dark regarding them. The average student in the high school should see a generous amount of purpose in all of his work and have the benefit of such experiences as are to be gained only by applying it to its purpose, even though it mean, from the viewpoint of the teacher, a compromise of his science.

Prescribing high school science work to precede the agriculture