This sub-committee met in Syracuse October 26, 1914. After further discussing these general plans, the following resolution was adopted:

"That there be appointed in the University of the State of New York Education Department an Assistant Commissioner of Agricultural Education, who shall be charged with the coordination and unification of agricultural education in the state."

The foregoing resolution was unanimously adopted at a meeting of the combined committee held in Rochester, December 11, 1914. It seems to your committee that state-supported educational processes should have their general policy, correlation and coordination under our Education Department, maintaining local autonomy and control of details.

Agricultural education is not different in its fundamentals from other education. The same principles are involved and the same pedagogy used. It should, therefore, be under the same general control, its policy administered by the same competent body, and its affairs developed by similar mechanism.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

DEAN H. E. COOK

Your committee has endorsed the report of the special committee on agricultural unification, and asks the privilege of making their report a part of the report of this committee.

Your committee also recommends to the careful consideration of this society the proposition to change the unit of administration of the rural schools of the state from the district system to the township system. Inequalities in taxation, for education particularly, exist under the antiquated plan of the school district system. The modern idea now prevails to a large extent, in a majority of the best farming sections of the country, of bringing more pupils and more property to the support of a single school so that the work of such school may be graded, better teachers employed, adequate equipment provided, and the schools of the farming sections made the equal of the city or village schools. Your committee believes that the township system worked out on proper

lines would result in a economical administration of school affairs in the rural regions, as well as providing not only school facilities necessary for the proper development of the educational interests of the state, but an enlarged use of school plants throughout the agricultural sections for community purposes.

MR. SCHRIVER: I move a division of the subject and then move the adoption of the report of the first committee on Unification of Agricultural Education.

THE PRESIDENT: It is moved and seconded that we divide the subject of Dean Cook's reports and vote for the adoption of the first report which is the report on the correlation of the agricultural educational subjects.

Carried.

MR. SCHRIVER:

In order to bring it before the body parliamentarily, I move the adoption of the second report.

Motion lost.

DEAN COOK: Would I be out of place in asking for a more positive vote on the township system? If I ever saw a weak vote on both sides, it was expressed by this audience. If the subject is worth our attention at all it is worth putting some positive stamp on it. Let us show where we stand on a question that is bound to be important in the next few years in our rural communities.

MR. FRASER: I honestly do not know how to vote on it. I judge we have a committee that has been working hard and that are interested, but personally I do not know how to vote on it.

THE PRESIDENT: I think Mr. Fraser expresses a somewhat general feeling or condition. The chair will consider any resolution. DEAN COOK: I should like to move for a reconsideration and give us a chance to vote on the two questions involved.

THE PRESIDENT: The Chair believes that a brief statement of just what the township proposition is, would probably clarify the matter a little in the minds of some people who have not given it much study. My understanding is that the proposition is to create in the township a township board to take the place of the district school boards as we have them now, leaving the disposition of the

schools entirely in local hands. This would make it possible for the town board to combine two or more schools in one if that seems advisable, and at the same time it would be left to the discretion of the board to continue other districts where they are now organized. The board would have the privilege of leaving the matter just as it is now, the only difference being that there would be a township board instead of a school district board, and that such board would have the authority to combine certain schools, if that seemed the best plan.

MR. GILES: Unfortunately, I was out of the room and only came in just at the close of this report. It seems to me that we are not going at this just right, and, since it is open for reconsideration, I believe what I shall say will be in order. This committee has done a large amount of work at your direction. I think it is entirely right and proper to accept the report of that committee without adopting any part, and then take up the different recommendations for adoption or rejection. Let us accept it, and then it becomes our property and we can discuss it and settle it in a parliamentary manner.

THE PRESIDENT: Shall we reconsider the question?

THE PRESIDENT: The Chair will now consider a resolution on the question as it originally stood.

MR. GILES: I move that the report of this committee be accepted. By that I mean it then becomes our property and we can take the questions up separately, and the body take care of them. Motion carried.

THE PRESIDENT: Is there anything further at this time? I might say that I think the usual way would be for the matter to come in as a resolution and go to the Committee on Resolutions. If the Chair might, it would suggest that this be done in this

case.

MR. VAN ALSTYNE: It seems to me that the matter is clearly before us, and that we should dispose of it now. I move that this society accept or adopt the proposition of the township school as outlined by Dr. Finegan yesterday.

Seconded.