Notice: Gone Fishing! Not really, but this is the last Friday Footnote until late August. I encourage agricultural education professionals to take a vacation, so I am practicing what I preach.
Actually, I am combining a vacation with a couple of speaking engagements. Next week I will be speaking at the Fountain Park Chautauqua in Remington, Indiana. In case you are curious, the title of the speech is Corn, Tomatoes, & POWs: Hoosier Agriculture During World War II.
In August I will be at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state. The title of that presentation is Go Ye Into All The World: Stories of the Chautauqua Movement and its Legacy. This year is the 150th anniversary of Chautauqua and I was asked to identify the impact that Chautauqua has made on the world. For the females in the profession you might be interested to learn that Chautauqua was a major force in getting the 19th amendment ratified which gave women the right to vote in 1920. It took the FFA a few more years after this to catch on.
Now, back to this week’s Footnote.
Agricultural Education in Louisiana
The development and growth of agricultural education in Louisiana is similar to that of other states except for the fact that counties are known as parishes in Louisiana. In this Footnote we will see what was going on in Louisiana at different points in time. The same things were probably happening in your state also.
1909. Eight agricultural high schools were established in the state. They were at Oak Grove, Bunkie, Jacoby, Dodson, Arcadia, Stonewall, Many and Maryville. An article in the Alexandria (LA) Daily Town Talk (September 21, 1909) stated:
The most important educational venture in Louisiana this year is the new agricultural high school. A consistent effort has been made during the last few years to introduce the teaching of elementary agriculture in the common schools…But nothing has been done in the way of teaching agriculture in high schools.
The curriculum and plan of operation was described later in the article. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. Alexandria Daily Town Talk. Page 6. September 21, 1909
1917. The passage of the Smith-Hughes Act was welcomed in Louisiana. An article in The Shreveport Times (October 18. 1917, p. 87) identified the intent of the Act as “to democratize the school system and give publicly paid for instruction in useful lines to young America.” Later in the article the writer states:
If you look at the statistics showing at what ages children leave school, you will find that they begin to drop out fast at the age of 11. By the time … [they] attain the age of 16, only 50 percent are receiving any education whatever.
The high-brow educators of the country as a class do not understand or sympathize with vocational education. They want nice academic, impractical course of study. When the new system which Uncle Sam is just starting gets fully underway it will have something fine to offer…”
It took some time after the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act for it to be implemented in Louisiana and in other states.
1921. James Gladney, the Principal of the Mangham School in Rayville, Louisiana sent a letter to The Richland Beacon-News announcing the addition of vocational agriculture to the school. He said that agriculture would be required of all boys in 8th grade and would be an elective for other high school boys. He then described what would be required of the boys. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. The Richland Beacon-News. September 10, 1921.
1935. Agriculture teachers teach audiences other than just the students in high school. They also teach part-time classes for youth 15 to 25 years old and also conduct evening classes for adult farmers.
In an article in The Times of Shreveport the state superintendent of education, T. H. Harris, stated (February 24, 1935, p. 2):
The old supposition that the dirt farmer is hostile to book farming hasn’t any foundation in Louisiana.
One has only to drop into the agricultural schools being maintained for adult farmers over the state and see crop producers with furrow dirt on their shoes eager for technical farming instruction to be convinced that there’s little in that old prejudice idea.
In the article Harris shares some of his observations of adult farmer classes and the classes for “younger agriculturalists.” He was impressed with what he had witnessed.
In the segregated schools of Louisiana, the Colored agriculture teachers were conducting similar programs for their communities. An article titled “Training School Here Aid to the Colored Farmer” published in The Oakdale (LA) Journal (April 25, 1935) summarized the accomplishments of the Allen Parish Training School. Some of the highlights were:
- Thirty-eight students were in the all-day class, and they all had home projects
- Fifteen students were in the part-time group. They had dropped out of school and were farming or working for farmers. The class met twice a week. They were all carrying home projects and had farm improvement projects.
- There were two adult education classes. Sixteen adults attended classes once a month at the Training School and there was a similar class of 15 in Oberlin. They had learned about “…canning vegetables, meats, curing meats, culling poultry, improved variety of seed, proper fertilization, and better care of fruit trees.”
- The Training school was connected with the Colored Farmers Improvement Association and the New Farmers of Louisiana.
- There had been a Father and Son Banquet, school ground improvement program, and 1,400 cans of fruits and vegetables had been canned at the school
The final paragraph in the article stated “Our colored people of this community and in and around Oberlin are finding out that this scientific agriculture is helping them to blaze their ways through this economic crisis.”
1942. The FFA and NFA members in Louisiana were involved in various activities to aid the war effort. At the state FFA convention in 1942 the state superintendent of education, John Coxe, applauded the FFA members for their efforts. They had collected 800,000 pounds of scrap metal and 180,000 pounds of rubber. They had also invested $12,000 in war bonds. See Figure 3.
Figure 3. The Times (Shreveport, LA), August 21, 1942)
1944. Do you know what a school-community service center is? During World War II the agriculture teacher and the agriculture departments were “…opening their doors to all the people—be they 6 or 65—needing educational service, day or night, month in and month out.” These were the words of R. W. Gregory, U. S. Office of Education official who had just finished a tour of vocational agriculture facilities in four Southwest Louisiana parishes (St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune, February 25, 1944, p. 7).
Gregory has observed farmers working in the school shop to repair farm machinery, the construction and use of school canneries and food processing facilities, and the efforts of agriculture teachers to teach people how to grow and conserve food. See Figure 4.
Figure 4. St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune, February 25, 1944, p. 7
1964. The Vocational Education Act of 1963 broadened the scope of agricultural education to be more than just farming. So the question was what should now be taught in agricultural education classes. To answer that question a massive data gathering campaign was launched in 1964 in Louisiana.
The lead paragraph in an article in The Alexandria Daily Town Talk stated (February 4, 1964, p. 1) “A survey whose results may include a complete revamping of agricultural education at all levels in Louisiana will begin next Monday in Alexandria.” The article went on to describe how a survey was to be conducted of agricultural businesses in Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, Lafayette, New Orleans, and Shreveport.
Figure 5. The Alexandria Daily Town Talk (February 4, 1964, p. 1)
The survey had six objectives:
- To identify present and emerging agricultural occupations other than farming and ranching, for which instruction in vocational agricultures should be made available.
- To determine competencies needed for entry and advancement in these occupations.
- To estimate the annual turnover and entry opportunities in these occupations and job titles.
- To determine the present number of employees in the jobs and entry availability.
- To determine other characteristics of these occupations such as salary, age of entry, labor laws and union regulations, required formal education, experience and licensing and certification.
- To supply basic data needed to provide agriculture training at the high school and college level for off-the-farm occupations available for the youth of Louisiana.
Dr. C. L. Mondart of LSU was in charge of the study. The results impacted the agricultural education curriculum in Louisiana.
1971. At the 1969 national FFA convention, the decision was made to allow girls to be in the FFA. Some FFA chapters in Louisiana immediately welcomed female members and some were a little slow in doing so. It appears Franklin Senior High School in Franklin, Louisiana was one of the first to capitalize on the talents of female FFA members. About a year after girls were allowed membership in the FFA. Janet Harris of Franklin High won the FFA Area III Public Speaking contest. The title of her speech was “That Spaceship Called Earth.”
Figure 6. The Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), January 30, 1971.
2009. The headline for the article was “What is Agricultural Science Education?”. The next article was titled “Opportunities through Agricultural Science Education.” These two articles appeared in The Rayne Acadian-Tribune on February 19, 2009 and were designed to educate the public about agricultural education.
A national study of agricultural education (Understanding Agriculture, New Directions for Education) conducted in 1988 by the National Research Council recommended that the curriculum in agricultural education become more science oriented. And that is what happened across the country including Louisiana. In many states “Agricultural Education” became “Agricultural Science Education.
Concluding Remarks
This Footnote was designed to provide a snapshot of agricultural education over time in Louisiana. However, we could change the state name, the names of the schools and newspapers, and get a fairly accurate picture of agricultural education in most states across America. While there may be some unique differences in various states, agricultural education and the FFA embodies unifying elements across the nation.