AGRICULTURAL ED'UCA'TION. The modern system of agricultural education in its most complete form includes (1) university courses of instruction and research (experiment stations) ; (2) general college courses; (3) col lege courses or schools in special subjects, e.g., dairying, animal husbandry, aviculture, or vet erinary science; (4) secondary courses or schools (agricultural high schools) ; (5) elementary in struction in common schools; (6) university extension, through farmers' institutes, corre spondence courses, etc. The term agriculture, as related to education, may be used broadly with reference to an institution or course of instruction in which agricultural subjects are taught along with other branches of knowledge. It is in this sense, for example, that we speak of a college of agriculture or a college course in agriculture. Or the term may be restricted to that portion of a com-se of instruction in which agricultural subjects only are taught, as when we say: "Agriculture is taught in that college." Committees of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations have recently recommended that the fol lowing subjects be included in a four-year col lege course in agriculture: Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, drawing. English, other modern languages, psychology, ethics or logic, political economy, general history, constitutional law, physics, chemistry (general and agricultural), meteorology, geology, botany (including. vegeta ble physiology and pathology), zoi)logy (includ ing entomology), physiology, veterinary science, horticulture, forestry, and agriculture (in the narrow, technical sense). The committee on methods of teaching agriculture of the same asso ciation has divided technical agriculture into (1) agronomy (plant production) ; (2) zoi)tech ny (animal industry) ; (3) agrotechny (agri cultural technology) ; (4) rural engineering (farm mechanics) ; and (5) rural economics (farm management).
In the syllabus for the course in agriculture formulated by this committee, agronomy is de fined as "the theory and practice of the produc tion of farm crops," and is made to include what. is to be taught regarding the structure, composition, and physiology of farm crops and their environment, i.e., climate, soil, fertilizers, etc., and regarding the culture, harvesting, pres ervation, and uses of individual kinds of crops, as well as the obstructions to their growth from weeds, fungi, bacteria, insects, birds, and other animals. Zootechny is "the theory and practice of the production of animals useful to man," and includes especially types, breeding, feeding, hygiene, and systems of management of different kinds of farm animals. Agrotechny is "the theory anti practice of the conversion of raw materials produced by agriculture into manu factured articles for use in commerce and the arts." In its broadest sense. agrotechny includes such things as the making of butter, cheese, sugar, vinegar, concentrated food,. canned goods, liquors, textiles, leather. et•.: lilt in the agri cultural colleges generally, only dairying is 1.1,u ally taught under this head. Rural engineering is "the science and art of laying out farms, designing and constructing farm buildings and works i.e., water systems, irrigation works,
drains, sewage systtnns• and roads], and making and using farm implements and machinery." Rural cettnomies "treat of agriculture as a means for the production, preservation, and distribu tion of wealth by the use of land for the growing of plants and animals." UsrrEu STATEs. Agitation on behalf of agri cultural education began very soon after the organization of the first agricultural societies Afflucurirunm, Assoet.vnux ) , near the end of the eighteenth century. In 1792, under the intluenee of the New York Agricultural Soci ety, the trustees of Columbia College in New York City established "a professorship for natu ral history, chemistry, and agriculture," and elected Samuel L. Madill], M.D., MA., an active member of the Society. to fill the chair. In 1794 the Philadelphia Society received an elabo rate report from one of its committees, in which the claims of education in agriculture through the establishment of college professorships, as well a• of courses of instruction in the common schools, are urged upon the attention of the State legislature. In 1801 the Massaehusetts society started a subscription, which resulted in the establishment of a professorship of natural history in Harvard College in 1504, and later in the establishment of a botanic garden. Books on agriculture began to be published frequently in this country, among which was The Farmers' Assistoal, by Nicholson (Albany, N. Y., 1814), "embracing every article relating to agri culture, arranged in alphabetical order." The no rican Parinrr, the first distinctively agri cultural periodical in this country. was started in Baltimore, Md., in 1519. The Gardiner Ly ceum, begun in 1523• in Maine. with the aid of a grant of money from the State. especially for the education of mechanics and farmers, had a professor of agriculture, a practical farm, and special short winter courses, and was success fully maintained for many years. An agricul tural school established at Derby, Conn., in 1826, proved immediately successful. A number of other schools in which was taught were established in Connecticut and New York between 1525 and 1850.
In 1546, John I'. Norton was appointed pro fessor of agrieultural chemistry and vegetable and animal physiology at Yale College. llis pupil and SUCCessfo' was Samuel W. Johnson, the well-known author of How Cropg Grote, who for many years has been a leader in the move ment for agricultural education. Assoeiated with him, as professor of agriculture, has been 11. Brewer, who was also a student un der Professor Norton, and was identified with agricultural schools established in New York prior to 1500. The New York Legislature passed acts in 1853 establishing a State agri• cultural college and an industrial sehool. to be known as "The People's College." Thee institutions, however, did not become firmly established, Ilmugh Amos Brown. the president of the latter, was lat7ely instrumental in seem ing national legislation industrial edu cation. Agricultural colleges which have grown to be permanent and strong institutions were opened in ,Nliehigan in 1857 and in Pennsylvania and Maryland in 1859.