for strengthening and
coordinating the educational work of the home, the church, and of
various organizations.

The teaching of agriculture has been made vital and effective by the
home project in which the boy comes to appreciate the value of the
principles studied at school in connection with an agricultural
enterprise in raising crops or livestock of his own on the home farm.
This tends to enlist the interest of the parents, who contribute largely
to the educational process. The same principle is being applied to a
less extent in work in home economics, and the giving of school credit
for various kinds of home work has established a community of interest
between home and school. In the teaching of hygiene, and particularly
with regard to sex hygiene, the school finds it difficult to establish
those habits and attitudes which are as important as mere knowledge
without the help and cooperation of the home. So, too, the medical
inspection of school children, with the work of school nurses and
clinics held at the school for children of pre-school age, stimulate the
home to better health.

Because of the separation of church and state in this country we have
very largely neglected all effort toward religious education in our
public schools, and even ethical training has been more or less of a
secondary objective until very recently. A growing appreciation of the
inadequacy of the ordinary Sunday school has led to a movement for
giving systematic instruction and training in religious education under
church auspices at a time set apart by the school and for which school
credit is given when it meets reasonable educational standards. The
week-day school of religion is still in an experimental stage. It has
been established longest in cities, but is now being attempted in rural
communities, and if sectarian dogmatism and jealousies can be submerged,
there seems every reason to hope that this may be a most important
feature of our educational system.

So, too, the boys' and girls' clubs in agriculture and home economics,
the boy and girl scouts, the campfires, the little mothers' leagues, the
health crusades, the Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A., and other organizations for
children and youth, have created new interest in certain aspects of
school work and are a source of educational dynamic which progressive
educators are utilizing as valuable allies.

Thus in very many ways the school is adapting its methods to meet its
responsibi