TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 2426, 6 August 1891, Page 2

TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE.

The question of imparting technical instruction in agriculture to school boys has been exercising the minds of many leading men at Home, and their opinions on the subject are quote \in the English papers. Among others Professor Huxley has been questioned on the subject, and his views as read to a meeting of a local agricultural society are worthy of the consideration of those who take an interest in the subject here. " I am afraid," he wrote, " that my opinion upon the subject of your enquiry is worth very little, my ignorance of practical agriculture being profound. However, there are some general principles which apply to all technical training. The first of these, I think, is that practice is to be learned only by practice. The farmer must be made by thorough farm work. I believe I might be able to give you a fair account of a bean plant, and of the manner and condition of its growth; but if I were to try to raise a crop of beans your club would probably laugh consumedly at the result. I believe that you practical people would be all the better for the''scientific knowledge which does not enable me to grown beans. It would keep you from, attempting hopeless expe,riinensSj and vvouid enable you to take advantr age of the innumerable hints which Pame Nature gives to people who live |n direct contact with things. Ah 4 this leads me to, the general principle which I think applies to all technical teaching qf school boys and sohooi girls, and that is that they should be lerl from the .observation of the commonest facts to general scientific truths. If I were called upon to frame a course of elementary instruction preparatory to agriculture, I am not sure that I should attempt chemistry, or botany, or physiology, or geology as such. It is a method fraught with danger of spending too much time and j attention on abstraction and theories, I on words and notions, instead of things. The history of a bean, of a grain of wheat, of a turnip, of a sheep* of a pig, or of a cow, properly treated—with the introduction of the elements of chemistry, physiology, and so on as they pome jn—would give all the elementary science tyhicfr'fis needed |6r the comprehension of. the processes of agriculture in a fqrm easily assimilated, by the youthful mind, whioh loathes anything in the shape of long words and abstract notions: and small blame to it! lam afraid that I shall not have helped you very much ; but I believe that -ray suggestions, rough as they; are, are in the right direction." Sdnrie such course of teaching k required 1 in our primary schools', io be followed, if the circuinstknees of the scholar render it desirable, by a more advanced c6urse in the high schools or |t the $chqoi of Agric^ltfure,^ |t 0 a fallacy to suppose'" that the, knowledge that would thus be communicated would bj6 usejess except to ttyqse who might b,e hejrs apparent .tg farms, or whose parents might d,es.tirie them to a country life, Those who had no present apparent destiny beyond that of farm laborers would profit by the instruction. The Oamaru district is as well farmed as any part of Few Zealand, and there tjie farmers complain of not jyjng able' to'; obtain agricultural laborers. A leading larmer afc a recent meeting of the North Qtago Agricultural and Pastoral Association l^bved |hat the Government be asked to place a sum on the estimates 1 for the purpose of introducing "agricultuyal fefyoreps of tip right s^mp—meaning,

we presume, men who had been thoroughly trained in farm work at Home With so many young men, sons of farmers, farm laborers and even town workers, growing up in this country, our best plan is to give them a knowledge of the elements of agriculture—the nature of seeds and plants, the effects of the various "chemicals contained in manures, and so on. The practical, manual work of the farm will soon be learnt, and the store of technical knowledge will be constantly added to by the exercise of the habits of observation which were awakened in the early stages of study. The desideratum is, as Professor Huxley says, not a knowledge nf long names, but of the laws of nature and science by which agriculture is governed. We will then have lads leaving school prepared to deal intelligently with agricultural work, and fitted to make the best class of farm workers and ultimately farm owners. "• Knowledge is power" no less in the case of the labourer than in that of the landowner.