Pig Raising: A Manual for Pig Clubs

Whatever may be the status of the project system of teaching other subjects, it is coming to be quite generally agreed that the home project offers one of the best methods for teaching elementary agriculture. The essentials of the home project plan are as follows: (1) A definite, detailed plan for work at home covering a season or more or less extended period of time; (2) it must be a part of the instruction of the school in agriculture; (3) the parents and pupils should agree with the teacher upon the plan; (4) the home work must have competent supervision; (5) records and reports of time, method, cost and income must be honestly kept and submitted to the teacher.

In the study and practice of a vocational subject such as agriculture, we may distinguish three aspects, each involving distinct pedagogical characteristics and special problems of administration. The first includes the concrete, specific, or practical work, such as the actual making of a garden, the raising of poultry, or the growing of corn; the second involves a study of such technical sciences as botany, physics, chemistry, and the principles of the agricultural science relating directly to the subject of agriculture under consideration; the third aspect includes such general information as the history, economic values, and other interesting facts of that particular phase of agriculture being studied. Doctor Snedden states in his “Problems of Secondary Education,” that the keynote of the newer education in these fields is to be found in the development of facilities for obtaining practical experience, under conditions as nearly approximating those of the actual vocation as can be obtained.

It is for the purpose of making as practical as possible some of the principles of scientific agriculture for the boys and girls of the public schools, and of giving direct vocational value to such work that this little book, the third of a series, is submitted. The plan outlines one project in each booklet, supplying the project directions, practical exercises for laboratory work, subject-matter for study and recitation, and notebook forms for accounts and records. The school work in elementary agriculture for one year may be based upon one or two projects, giving opportunity to supply new subject-matter by rotation each year; or the project method may be used to supplement the text-book method as used either in the elementary or high-school grades. In either case, the boys and girls doing the project work should be organized into a club and affiliated with the State Boys and Girls Club movement through the state leader, usually located at the State College of Agriculture.