LINCOLN COLLEGE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21759, 16 April 1936, Page 9

LINCOLN COLLEGE

TO THI EDITOB OF THE PRESS. Sir,—By the report in "The Press" of April 9, the members of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association have b»an discussing the control of Lincoln College, and expressing fears that the management may get into the hands of scientists. There is, however, less to be alarmed at in that than in the view that the main aim of the college should ba to train young farmers. The word "practical farmer" occurs so often in the report that one would like to ask the members what it means. Do they all work their own teams, etc., or do they own good farms and employ good men? Anyhow, the science of to-day becomes the practice of to-morrow once it has been proved sound, and Lincoln College would be better employed turning out fresh agricultural theories for the benefit of Canterbury and the whole of New Zealand than merely running a farm school. If practical farming means doing things as their father did, why not keep boys at home and train them there without wasting the time of the college? The fact is that the scientific must be the main part of the college work, and with the help of the students each idea can be tried out before it is handed on to the farmers to be in turn tried out by them. Besides this, their routine work should give plenty of sound farm practice, though some judgment may be needed later on to adapt this to farming on a smaller scale. The work of Lincoln College would hardly be complete unless a certain number of students, apart from actual farming, could qualify to take up agricultural work as teachers or research workers, but this could not be if its scope were limited to the extent proposed.—Yours, etc., T.A.S.

April 14, 1936,