SD Agricultural Education and FFA History

100 Years of SD Agriculture Classes!

By Clark W. Hanson
Professor Emeritus, Agricultural Education, SDSU

What do the National Football League, A & W root beer and South Dakota Agricultural Education have in common?  The three share a common birthday or at the least a close starting date. Advertisements for Sunday P.M. Fall entertainment and A & W root beer provide a bench mark for grasping the age of high school programs near and dear to a number of rural communities. It was also the year in which South Dakota native Edgar McFadden got out of the Army was employment by USDA and stationed at the Highmore Research Station. McFadden was the noted plant breeder who developed the stem rust resistant wheat variety named Hope.

Fall 2019 was the 100th Anniversary of the beginning of vocational agriculture programs in South Dakota sponsored in part by the federal government. However, there is ample evidence that eleven local South Dakota high schools were offering some high school agriculture classes prior to 1919. Wessington Springs was one of those schools. The instructor was the great uncle of Craig Shryock, the current instructor at Wessington Springs High School.

Following the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act in 1917, states electing to participate were required to establish state boards of vocational education for the purpose of administering federal vocational education programs. In South Dakota the State Board of Education assumed the duties of the State Board of Vocational Education.  The Vocational Board determined the course of study, how schools were to be selected and the distribution of the federal vocational education funds.

The first school to be approved to offer vocational agriculture was Ravinia Consolidated School. On January 29, 1919 the Board approved, Viborg, Wessington Springs, Brookings, Huron and Watertown to initiated programs. Later, the Board approved Clear Lake, Madison, Belle Fourche, Woonsocket, Mt. Vernon and Salem. The dates for starting classes are a bit unclear.

What would Joe Knutson, a 1919 High School Freshmen, think when he heard that his local high school was adding vocational agriculture to the curriculum. Back then, can you imagine what was going through the freshman's mind. What would the class be like? He had heard that a portion of the curriculum would include instruction in crops, livestock and shop.

Was the teacher certified? Doubtful! There was a shortage of teachers, which sounds familiar. Did the teacher have an agricultural background? We don't know for sure. However, some may have been trained as science teachers, particularly Biology.
C.D. Jarvis, Specialist in Agricultural Education, U.S Bureau of Education reported in
Bulletin, 1921, No. 40, entitled “Agricultural Education,” that 283 future teachers graduated from 38 agricultural colleges which hosted “special teacher - training curricula or majors” Mr. Jarvis also reported an anticipated shortage of 465 agriculture teachers for the 1920-1921 school year.

College classes in teacher education and agriculture were available. Was the program under the direction of a State Board? Yes. What will the classroom look like? Tables and chairs rather than desks? Will there have a shop? It is doubtful that a suitable shop facility could have been constructed in such a short time frame.  Will there be textbooks?  Your author recently located a textbook for high school students published in 1918: FARM SCIENCE – A Foundation Textbook on Agriculture, written by W.J. Spellman, published by World Book Company. The contents included:

Part One – The Soil
Chapter:

1.       What The Soil Is
2.       Distribution of Soil Material
3.       Soil Texture
4.       Moisture In the Soil
5.       Tillage
6.       Terracing, Drainage, Irrigation, and Dry Farming
7.       Soil Improvement

 Part Two – The Plant
     8.          Plant Organs and Their Uses
     9.          How Plants Live   
   10.         Fertilizers
   11.         Plant Propagation
   12.         Weeds
   13.         Insects Pests
   14.         Fungi

Part Three – The Animal
   15.        Purposes For Which Livestock Are Kept
   16.        Breeds of Livestock
   17.        Principles of Feeding

Part Four – The Farm
   18.       The Farm Business
   19.       How to Secure Best Results from Crops
   20.       Livestock Enterprises
   21.       The Farm Investment and Income

In the book’s Preface, the author describes the nature of the experiments listed at the end of each chapter. The experiments did not require “apparatus” and the necessary materials were generally available on the farm.

Educational references for teachers? This is a strong possibility as such publications had been available for over a 100 years. The Better Farming Association, copyright 1915, published one such document available to teachers, Farm Economy Twelve Courses in Agriculture. Your author has a copy of the 1921 edition. The reference is rather lengthy, consisting of 1247 pages, with only one chapter devoted to livestock.

The State of Missouri developed a four-year plan for teaching vocational agriculture.             Teach Growing Things was suggested for the first year:
                        Farm crops, how seeds grow, depth to plant, corn, oats,
                        alfalfa, weeds, gardens, canning drying.
            Second year teach Making Things:
                        Making a nail box, wash bench, bookrack, rope knots,
                        splicing rope, cement tanks, steps, posts, farm tools,
                        machines, removing strains, and sewing.
            For the third year of the curriculum, teach Live Things:
                        Animal diseases and remedies, how to feed, testing milk,
                        poultry, useful birds, insect pests, setting the table
                        and hot lunch.
            Teach Soil and Home the fourth year:
                        Soil fertility, cultivation, moisture, sanitation, beautifying
                        the home, social and community work.

International Harvester Company promoted such a four-year curriculum. On April 19, 1917, the company sponsored a full-page advertisement entitle, “How to Vitalize The Teaching of Agriculture in the Rural Schools”, as published in the Journal of Education, New England and National.

The high school curriculum continued to evolve. Comments from, Sixth annual Report to Congress… Federal Board for Vocational Education, encouraged teachers to “look…to the communities in which they are teaching for a determination of the content of courses…than to some cut-and-dried outline prepared by some State official or to outlines such as may be found in textbooks.”  In a five-year period of time, 1918 – 1922, the local high school vocational agriculture curriculum “is marked by the fact that a majority of States are now adapting courses to local conditions.”

 Would there be an Agriculture Club? Not sure, although clubs were known to have excited for some time. The original Clubs may well have been a type of 4-H Club, as the FFA wasn't established until ten years later. What about judging contests? Considered to be more than likely as South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts started hosting such events during the period of time.