AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2596, 2 September 1909, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

SHOULD RUDIMENTARY AGRICUL TURE IN OUR STATE SCHOOLS BE A COMPULSORY i SUBJECT?

(BY M. MURPHY, F.L.S.). Read at the Agricultural Conference, August 5.

Before considering this question, I may be permitted to make a short digression for the purpose of drawing attention to the- social and economic conditions under which we in the Dominion exist, which will, I take it, accentuate the necessity for universal agricultural education. It must be patent to all that New Zealand must, for an indefinite period; depend almost entirely on her agricultural products for her wealth. Our commerce with England and the outside world is, for the most mart, made up of meat, wool, wheat, butter and cheese, and a little native flax fibre, etc. We cannot bo a manufacturing community until our population vastly increases, thereby creating a local market, and until the conditions for labor are more equalised throughout the manufacturing countries 1 of the work!.

The annual total of our exports of produce and manufactures for 1907 amounted to £19,783,138, of which £14,243,72S was for' agricultural products. You will agree with me that these figures in themselves show suffieient reason" why the rising generation should receive not only a practical, but a scientific training, from earliest youth upwards in the treatment of the soil, and everything pertaining to it, the growth of plants, the treatment and breeding of animals, and in checking the spread of insect pests and fungoid growths.

When we look’ around and see what other countries, indeed, I may say what almost every civilised country in the world is doing in these directions, it behoves us to stir ourselves, and learn how to wrench from the soil, by tlie aid of science', the greatest possible amount of the best possible products at the least possible cost, and with the least possible detriment to the soil. If we fail to follow suit, we must, sooner or later, go under. It is a very hopeful sign of the times that the Boards of Education and other public bodies throughout the Dominion appear to be becoming conscious of their responsibilities regarding the agricultural education of the youth of the country. Our Education Act makes full provision for instruction in elementary science in country schools, having very definite relation to agriculture and horticulture, though this lias seldom been carried out except‘in the most perfunctory manner. I shall have occasion, later on, to refer to this matter. Very large sums of money are being expended annually in this Dominion in the endeavor to promote'the agricultural interests, as for example, in the establishment of experimental stations, but it is very questionable if the results are at all commensurate with the expenditure. As regards experimental stations, 1 am greatly of Professor Lowrie’s opinion. He was entirely opposed to them as being of comparatively little use to anyone outside.p small radius. He held that every farmer should make his own holding field of research. No experimental farm, however close to his boundaries could be so absolute a guide for the conditions under which he was working. Of course, these local experiments, to be of value, must be subject to expert supervision. Such experimental plots would form excellent ob-ject-lessons through the various districts, instead of being confined to one or two distant centres. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. MacKenzie, recently said: ‘ ‘What tlie country most requires is more instruction, and less inspection.” I think most of us will heartily endorse this statement.

But to return to my point. The Board of • Education of North Canterbury is proposing to appoint two experts who will act the part of itinerant instructors, whose business, I take it, will be to visit farmers, arrange for lectures at convenient seasons in rural districts; visit rural schools, address teachers and children; promote, the formation of school gardens; give the children interesting and instructive addresses on the sowing of seeds, the growth of plants and their cultivation —in fact, the “why” of operation. Work of this kind cannot at present be relegated to teachers, for the reason that they have not been prepared for that class of instruction. This effort will be in the right direction. But it is not sufficient that the Board’s teachers should be encouraged to attend lectures in convenient centres. We must go further! The pupil teachers must be required to .take Nature subjects . during their pupil teachership, and especially during their ,final years at the Normal echool. By carrying out some such system we should, in a very few year's, have properly qualified teachers, who tv-buld commence their careers with a due regard to the importance of agriculture as a profession. They would naturally impress their elder pupils with the idea that there is a no more exalted one, or one in which brain and energy .can be used to better advantage, and I believe the desire at present so prevalent to get away from the farm life would be much lessened.

If boys in the higher standards became fully aware of the importance of the matter they would, after their school days, be all the more willing attendants at lectures, which may be arranged during winter evenings, and to appreciate and take advantage of the direct instruction in rural matters, which will be a main feature in the proposed rural secondary' and technical schools. They will learn many things about the natural sciences which underlie agriculture, which will impress them with a love for ■ science, so necessary to a profitable and pleasant life on the farm; and wopld tend to get rid of that unwholesome desire to drift into towns, leaving behind them the more solid comforts of their country homes. - ~ It has been well said that the school training of youth is a preparation for life’s duties, in whatever station they

mav be called to; unfortunately our present system dees very little towards this end. Commencing with standards .1 and 11., pictures might be used with great advantage .as educators, preparing the young and impressionable minds for the ro/;-re advanced teaching in tlie upper standards. Visiting almost any school, town or -country, we find a few pictures scattered on the walls in a promiscuous manner, loaded with dust, representing lions, tigers, whales and the like. I would have these removed, .and replaced by life-like pictures of farm animals, cereals, roots, forage plants, insect friends and foes, fungoid growths, birds, native and introduced weeds, etc. With a qualified teacher as instructor, it may be easy to understand what a fund of useful and preparatory information could be instilled into the young and plastic mind, which, if pleasantly imparted, would largely influence tlie children in their after likes and dislikes of rural life. I know I shall be met by many arguments somewhat after this manner: “Your suggestions are all very well, but, under the present overloaded syllabus, they could not be carried out-.” I may point out, however, that a definite course of nature study is prescribed as an additional subject in all standards up to Standard IV., and that in Stamlards V. and VI. tlie course for elemen- , tary science for country schools has very definite relation to agriculture and- horticulture. This additional sub-

ject can, at present, be made compulsory jin all schools with, more than thirty-two children in average attendance Some will say that the work in other subjects demands so much time that where nature study or horticulture is taken up insufficient time can be given to it to make is a really profitable study. This, however, depends upon the requirements, not so much of the syllabus, as of the inspectors. Tlie syllabus states that “the head teacher shall draw up for each term or quarter schemes of work for all classes in his school,” and, provided that the scheme gives satisfaction to the inspector, there is a considerable amount of latitude allowed in regard to tlie time devoted to the various subjects. Take, for example, the- subject of geography, to which a good deal of exception lias been taken. Course A is, to a large extent, nature study. The syllabus states: “The following programme will indicate the kind of work that is intended to be done, 'but any suitable programme may be accepted by the inspector. It will often be convenient to include this work in tlie definite course of nature study or elementary science that it taken up.” The real reason why nature study,

horticulture and manual training are not regarded in the same serious way as other subjects of the curriculum is, I think, partly because teiicbers and inspectors do not recognise their value and importance, and partly because the old idea that the education in the primarv school was intended to lead up to that of the secondary school and the university is still dominant. It is forgotten that not 1 per cent of the children in the primary schools will go on to the secondary schools, and it is an obvious injustice that the training of the remaining ninety-nine should be conducted along lines not best suited to them. It must be borne in mind that the education of the primary school is the only education that the great majority of the children will ever get, and it is of the utmost importance that it should be so arranged that the maximum results can be obtained in the short time available. Personally, I think that the latitude allowed in the syllabus with regard to the teaching of horticulture or agriculture is at present necessary, owing to the fact that the great majority of teachers would not have had the training that would enable them to give this instruction satisfactorily ; and until the subject is made a compulsory one in the training colleges and duly qualified instructors obtained to carry out the work, no wide improvement can be expected. The Minister of Education has stated that a conference of school inspectors will be held next year for the purpose of considering the working of the syllabus. I would suggest that Mr. Alexander, Director of Lincoln Agricultural College, should be associated with the inspectors. I hope the Conference will see its way to move in this direction. The Poor Law Royal Commission, which sets up in England to enquire into the causes of the growth of pauperism and unemployment, reports:—That the present system of elementary education is not adapted to the wants of an industrial community. There is a consensus of feeling that the present education is too literary and diffuse in its character, and should be more practical. It should be more combined than at present -with manual training. It is not in the interests of the country to produce, by our system of education, a dislike of manual work, and a taste for clerical and for intermittent work, when the vast majority of those so educated must maintain themselves by manual labor. If school training is to be an adaption of the child to its future life and occupation, some revision of the present curriculum of public elementary schools seems necessary.” If this indictment of the educational system is true for* Great Britain, how much greater folly is it for an agricultural and’ pastoral community like ours to give all its children such an education as will tend to fit them for clerical work, and to wean them from country life? , I will conclude by quoting from the writings of the Right Hon. Sir Horace Plunkett, that philanthropic Irishman, who has spent the best years of his life in promoting the agricultural education of the Irish -people, the following .truism: —“Tlie well-being of a people is like a tree; agriculture its root, manufacture and commerce are its branches and its life; if the root is injured the leaves fall, the branches break away and the tree dies.”