The Essentials of Agriculture

Abstract

PRESIDENT WATERS tells us in his preface that the American people have decided that the public schools shall teach pupils “to think and to do,” and shall give a training intimately related to the life the student expects to lead. As a necessary consequence agriculture figures largely in American schools and we are told that wherever it is well taught it has proved to be a source of strength—whether the institution is a one-teacher country school, a high school, a college, or a university. The most successful method is to make the teaching local, taking the whole neighbourhood as the laboratory, and drawing abundantly on the local farms, gardens, orchards, and lanes, and the recognised local experts for the apparatus and materials required. The Essentials of Agriculture. By H. J. Waters. Pp. x + 455 + xxxvi. (Boston and London: Ginn and Co., 1915.) Price 1.25 dollars.