GIRLS FOR OVERSEAS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 213, 5 September 1912, Page 8

GIRLS FOR OVERSEAS.

PLANS FOR TRAIXIXG THEM. The advantage of a special practical course of study to complete the education of boys and girls who intend to spend their livee in one of the oversea Dominions is becoming more widely recognised by parents in Great Britain. The average education received by middleclass children contains little in the way of preparation for life under somewhat more rugged conditions, where everything must be done by the individual and not by hired helpers. Consequently, it is highly advisable for those who ■Tβ thinking" of emigrating to take up land jveraea to learn something of the tasks they wiir have to undertake on arrival in their new homes. This is particularly necessary in tie :ase of girls. Too many young women in England are possessed of the idea that they have only to go to Cunda, for example, in order to secure a husband who will support them in the idleness to which they have been accustomed in their father's house. It cannot he too strongly stated thai, this mental outlook "will not buy them anything" oversea, where even the wives of men whose incomes would cause them to be regarded as comparatively well-to-do in Britain are expected to be able to attend to all the housework singlehanded. There are a few training colleges which aim at remedying this deficiency in the ordinary education of English girls and boys. The Home and Colonial Training College, Lane House, Br&ndleeburton, Hull, of"which Miss Harrison is the prin-r-rpal, provides a practical training for girls in every branch of domestic science and all outdoor work. Here poultrykeeping, dairying, bacon-curing, bee-keep-ing, gardening, and general housewifery are taught by experts. The college is more than six miles from the nearest railway station, thus having the advantage of accustoming the students to isolation from town life. Foresight in laying in stores of food is acquired in consequence of the inability to replenish supplies at short notice. Miss Harrison argues that a private college is in many ways more able to train either a girl or boy than a large college, because at the former they are compelled to do the practical work. "Theory and scientific teaching by professors are extremely good when the simple practical work combined with the ordinary scientific uses of compound manures have been thoroughly learned (I am speaking more particularly of boys now)," Miss Harrison says, "but to take the college course first and the practical work afterwards is like putting the cart before the horse. "In the same way with girls, the special courses are in themselves everything that is to be desired when the girl has been thoroughly grounded in the preparatory school of a home training college, where she does the actual cooking for an ordinary household where thoroughly good plain every-day cooking is required. The use of bought materials is rigidly excluded here wherever possible. While one girl is cooking, another is in the laundry, another in the garden, yet another in the poultry yard, and another in the dairy. At the end of a fortnight places are changed, so that each girl gets an all-round training."