H.—lB

XC

pean cities the trade-unions and the school authorities are co-operating, and in many instances all apprentices are required under the terms of the apprenticeship to give portions of every week to special work in the technical schools. Where the technical schools open their doors to adult workers it has the additional advantage that it is everywhere given the enthusiastic support of labour organizations, because, instead of making the school the agent to train men to displace men already employed, it provides the opportunity of training for those already employed—quite a different matter. There is no doubt that the cost of living would be materially reduced if a proper system of general training in domestic economy were instituted. The woman who knows how to purchase to the best advantage and to make the most of the nutritive elements in the food she prepares for consumption will make her husband's weekly income go twice as far as that of the housewife who, e.g., buys meat without knowing what part of the animal it comes from, and how it compares with the cut from other parts, and who so handles it in cooking that more than half its nutritive value is lost, not to speak of the waste of substance. The Commission was frequently told that many women do not know how to shop to advantage. We hold that the instruction now given in many schools in cookery, laundry-work, hygiene, physiology, and needlework should be made general, and carried to a higher degree at our day technical schools. At each of these it is hoped there will be established a bostel like that at Christchurch, at which girls from a distance could board, and which could be used for the purpose of training the girls of the school and the neighbourhood in' practical household management. These schools, too, should be made free to the people in the country. We endorse what has been said by the Education Commission in favour of consolidating rural schools, and we also regret that better facilities are not provided for the conveyance of pupils to secondary and technical schools in the large centres. One of the problems requiring close attention is the institution of a good general system of education in agriculture. Production cannot keep pace with demand unless our farmers are educated in the principles underlying their avocation, which demands, perhaps more than any other, a thoroughly systematized and scientific training. Agriculture will be for generations the main sources of our wealth, and the gain to New Zealand would be immense if our agriculture were made scientific. We have still to mention what is perhaps the most valuable function of education —to guide the citizen in forming his standards of life. The extravagance and lavish display that mark our times ought to disappear with a system of education that paid some attention in the elementary schools to the ideal of social service, of " economic chivalry " and the formation of habits of life that will ensure a wiser use of wealth. "It would be a gain if the moral sentiment of the community could induce people to avoid all sorts of display of individual wealth,"* and this sentiment can be created only by giving the citizen, through his early education, an insight into the real meaning of society and the State. Ideals of consumption would benefit, and the standard of life be raised not only by reason of better selection of things that can be bought with money, but because of the greater capacity for producing and enjoying those things that cannot be bought with money. " When the necessaries of life are once provided, every one should seek to increase the beauty of things in his possession rather than their number or their magnificence. An improvement in the artistic character of furniture and clothing trains the higher faculties of those who make them, and is a source of growing happiness to those who use them. But if, instead of seeking for a higher standard of beauty, we spent our growing resources on increasing the complexity and intricacy of our domestic goods, we gain thereby no true benefit, no lasting happiness. The world would go much better if every one would buy fewer and simpler things, and would take trouble in selecting them for their real beauty ; being careful, of course, to get good value in return for his outlay, but preferring to buy a few things made well by highly paid labour rather than many made badly by low-paid labour."f The Commission therefore recommends :— (a.) The inclusion in the primary-school syllabus of a definite course of simple descriptive economics, to be correlated with that instruction in local history and local geography; and the development of more systematic courses of economics in the secondary schools.

Domestic education.

Agricultural education.

Functions of education.

* Marshall, Econ, of Ind„ p. 83. f Ibid., p. 84.