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USDA Historical Publications for Use in Rural Schools
The U.S. Department of Agriculture prepared and published many materials for use in rural schools to teach the fundamental issues of gardening and agriculture. Here is a sample of these works created at the time of Carver's bulletins.
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"In accordance with the apparent wishes of the association as expressed in an informal discussion of the report of this committee, at the meeting in Washington last November, this ninth report of the committee on methods of teaching agriculture is devoted to a discussion on the feasibility of teaching agriculture in the rural common schools, and suggestions regarding the nature and extent of such teaching. In this discussion the term 'common schools' is taken to mean schools giving instruction in grades below those of the high school, and the term 'rural schools' will include not only the schools in extremely rural districts, but also those in village and small towns which draw largely on the adjacent country for pupils and financial support. It should also be understood that in this report attention is confined to matters relating to the teaching of agriculture in the rural schools as ordinarily organized in our public school system. We have not undertaken here to discuss the advisability of the establishment of county or district elementary schools of agriculture as separate institutions or the courses of instruction suitable for such schools."
"The fact that many States now require the teaching of agriculture in the elementary grades makes it important that much attention be given to the subject matter. This bulletin presents lessons in agriculture adapted to the conditions in Alabama. The purpose is to suggest a plan by which the States may adapt instruction in agriculture to local needs. The selecting of a particular State in this instance has been made to show the manner in which such a plan may be definitely worked out. Although the department does not contemplate issuing publications of this kind for other States, it stands ready to co- operate in making studies as to agricultural and school conditions and in outlining courses adapted to the conditions.
A monthly sequence plan is followed in the presentation of these lesson topics, the purpose being to teach principles at the season when they are or should be practiced. Only the salient features of each lesson topic are outlined in this publication, but specific references are made to the State adopted textbook in agriculture and to bulletins of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala., and to Farmers' Bulletins of the United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. G. The references are made for two purposes, namely, to supplement the textbook material and to provide a reading course for the teacher. Any teacher who secures these bulletins and studies them carefully will have completed a good elementary course in agriculture, It is suggested that agriculture and some other subject such as physiology be alternated throughout the school year. Two lessons a week for eight months are necessary to complete the work in agriculture. If the school year is shorter, it will be necessary to have three lessons a week to complete the course.
Practical exercises are suggested in connection with each lesson. If this course is to be made most effective, however, the practical work should take the direction very largely of club activities or home projects."
"The purpose of this bulletin is to set forth simple exercises with plants and animals arranged after a monthly sequence plan for the first five grades in southern rural schools. The monthly sequence plan is followed so that plants and animals may be studied at a time when they are most interesting. The monthly exercises provide work for each of the first five grades of the public school. Practical exercises and field trips are suggested. If the best results are to be obtained each pupil should be required to have notebooks and keep records of the observations made and the information secured. In connection with each exercise correlations with other subjects are given. These are intended to be suggestive, but if the idea is followed out and supplemented the ordinary public school branches may be greatly vitalized. It is intended that this publication shall serve as an approach to the study of formal or textbook agriculture in the upper elementary grades.
It is to be understood that this is in no sense a textbook, but a guide for the teacher. There may be communities to which all the exercises given here are not adapted, but in that event they should prove sufficiently suggestive to be helpful to the teacher in planning work that may be substituted. Nothing definite is said concerning the place this work should take in the daily program, but it is suggested that the period of one or two regular classes be used once or twice each week. In other words, it need not be treated as an additional subject in the curriculum but for the sake of its own importance and the vitalizing influence on the other public school subjects this work should be substituted for one or two other recitations each week in the several grades."
"During the past few years there has been a growing interest in school garden work in this country. While the movement here is comparatively new, it has for a long time been a feature of the educational work in continental Europe. It is obvious that no set rules can be laid down for the management of a school garden. In the heart of a city the work may be an entirely different thing from what it is in a rural or semirural district. In the city the main idea may be an aesthetic one. Combined with moral and physical training.
The general trend of the work in this country is practical, so that its application will eventually have more or less effect on our industrial development. Manual training has been made a feature in many of our schools, and no one will deny that valuable results have been obtained from it.
Agriculture in its broadest sense is the primary basis of wealth in this country, and it seems essential that efforts should be made in our educational system to bring early to the mind of the child facts which will be of value as emphasizing the importance and necessity of agricultural work. There is no better way to do this than through a well-managed and well-conducted system of school garden training. Aside from the fact that the interest of the child is early awakened in an industry which means much to the future prosperity of this country, there is often a broader application of the work in its moral effect on the child. Then, the work is valuable in broadening lines of thought, enlarging the scope of the child's observation, and improving its physique."
"Those who are charged with the direct presentation of school garden work to children will recognize that the point of view for city children must be different from that for country children. As a rule, children in rural districts are familiar with the fundamental operations of the garden — preparation of the soil, planting the seed, and the cultivation and harvesting of the ordinary garden and farm crops. To attempt, therefore, to maintain the ordinary type of individual vegetable and flower garden upon the grounds of rural schools would undoubtedly be an unwise expenditure of time and energy.
For city children, however, to whom the growth of the plant is like the discovery of a new world, the application of the simple operations involved in the maintenance of the individual garden containing flowers and vegetables is altogether a different matter. The plan of procedure, therefore, for teachers in rural districts, should be quite different from that followed by those in urban communities. The teachers of the rural schools will find a most fruitful field along the line of laboratory experiments, which will demonstrate the principles of plant growth and of plant nutrition, methods of propagation, etc. In this connection we have therefore outlined two classes of work which will encroach more or less upon each other, but the discriminating teacher will have no difficulty in selecting that which is best suited to the conditions by which he or she is surrounded.
In rural communities, instead of conducting miniature vegetable or flower gardens, it might be better to secure different varieties of grains or grasses for test upon home plats, encouraging the students to undertake small experiments which shall have for their chief end the development of the faculties of observation. Different methods of tillage and fundamental principles of this character will be involved in these experimental or demonstration areas, the results of which will emphasize the importance of certain lines of work.
In some localities it will be possible to bring together upon the school grounds groups of shrubs and trees arranged in an artistic manner, so that the finished work will present an attractive picture and will furnish material of great value for purposes of instruction. The habits and uses of various plants can be brought out and the child led to appreciate the value of such decorative plantings in connection with the home. Such work, however, will not involve any very considerable expenditure of time or energy, neither will it require systematic attention to garden work on the part of the child. It will, however, have a broader and less exacting influence, and will, perhaps, be of greater importance in rural communities than would close attention to the maintenance of the individual garden."
"In the cotton States the importance of elementary agriculture as a school subject is very generally recognized, and it is now being taught to a greater or less extent in a large proportion of the rural schools. More and more it is becoming a part of the daily program of the schools.
It is hoped that these lessons, exercises, and references on the growing of cotton, based on economic production and properly supervised, may serve as a supplement to the organized school work in elementary agriculture, contributing in a very definite way elements that can be obtained by no other means.
The application of the lessons as outlined here will put the boy at actual farm problems where the expenditure of more or less money is necessary and where profitable incomes may be expected. Thus, through textbook instruction, laboratory exercises, correlations, and practical work in the growing of cotton on the home farm, this bulletin will aid in developing the real educational value of this study."
"These outlines of lessons on cotton are intended as aids in teaching the subject in the seventh or eighth grades of elementary schools. They should be especially helpful to teachers in rural consolidated schools, where facilities for handling the subject are generally better than in the ordinary one-room country school. However, the teachers in one-room schools should find much of this material useful, since their needs also have been kept in mind in the preparation of the outlines. The lessons furnish only special features of the subject and are not intended to be exhaustive, since it is expected that the teacher and pupils will have at least one elementary textbook of agriculture.
The teacher should make a special effort to obtain the farmers' bulletins referred to in this publication and should keep them on file in the school for ready reference. Publications from the local State college of agriculture and other sources bearing upon the subject should be obtained as far as practicable.
The lessons do not follow a logical order, but are arranged according to seasons, beginning with the opening of the fall term. As far as possible the instruction in the school and the home projects should follow the regular round of operations on the farm. The project should comprise not less than 1 acre of cotton."
"For a considerable number of years more attention has been given by farmers to the production and improvement of corn than to any other grain or general farm crop, yet for no 10-year period has the average corn yield of the United States exceeded 28 bushels per acre. No State has averaged for any year over 54 bushels per acre, yet in practically every section of the United States yields of more than 100 bushels per acre have been produced. With the rapid spread of the work of boys' clubs the need of the study of corn in the schools has come to be better appreciated. The purpose of this bulletin is to furnish lessons for developing the real educational value of this study."
"The teaching of agriculture in any community should have a vital connection with the problems of the farms of that community. Pupils are interested in those things about which they have some knowledge. The type of agriculture practiced in the community can be used to the best advantage in teaching. Therefore the teacher should organize the available subject matter which is of community interest and present it in such a manner that it will touch closely the life and experiences of the pupils. In order to do this the teacher must be familiar with the agricultural interests of the community.
For the purpose of assisting teachers in work of this kind circulars suggesting how teachers may profitably use information contained in certain publications of the United States Department of Agriculture are prepared from time to time. It is hoped that these circulars will serve to improve methods of instruction in agriculture and related subjects in the schools, and that a closer relation will be established between the work of the school and the interests of the community.
While these circulars are prepared more especially for teachers in elementary schools, they may serve as a basis for instruction in agriculture in secondary schools in urban as well as in rural schools.
The topics as outlined in this circular and the method of presentation should be of distinct value to teachers of agriculture in teaching the culture and varieties of cowpeas."
"The importance of the potato crop as briefly indicated above and the fact that it can be grown successfully in every State in the Union, should give it a place in courses in general agriculture and farm crops in nearly every school where such subjects are taught. At least one aim in the teaching of agriculture should be the training of farmers for the future, and as a result of such teaching the world should be better fed. The immediate aim in teaching this subject may be to aid in securing a production of better potatoes at a lower cost, but it may also be a medium for developing and applying many of the general principles of plant production. Applying these lessons to a home project will not only have greater agricultural value, but also will do much toward developing the student into a self-reliant husbandman."
"There are few branches of agriculture that take as little fertility from the soil and at the same time returns a profit to the farmer as dairy farming. While teaching dairy farming is not the purpose of this bulletin, yet it is the basis of the lessons presented. These lessons present the subject from the standpoint of clean milk production, milk products, milk as a food in the home and as a supplement to other food materials, and have been prepared to give to the organized school work in elementary agriculture additional impetus in dairying, to provide material for instruction that is within the range of elementary pupils, and to furnish a topic for home projects that may be worked out with profit to every community and with real educational value to the pupils concerned."