The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1926. A NATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 119, 13 February 1926, Page 8

The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1926. A NATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

Advocates of a national policy in dealing with higher education in agriculture have rightly set considerable emphasis on the economic aspect of th£ question. The enterprising encouragement of agricultural education offers an undoubted means of securing a greatly increased production from the land. Any expenditure that is likely to be called for in establishing a national School of Agriculture and in developing subsidiary institutions throughout the Dominion would be fully justified on that ground alone. It would be taking an unduly limited view of the possibilities of a School of Agriculture, however, to regard it only as a means of stimulating production in primary industries. A broad-based scheme of agricultural education is needed, not merely to set higher standards in our existing farming industry, but to give balance and true proportion to our national educational system. This system as it stands is lop-sided. It is not adapted to the needs- of the country, and gives gifted members, of the rising generation little opportunity of qualifying for activities m which they might engage with the utmost advantage from an individual and national standpoint. Our university colleges are turning out too many lawyers, doctors, engineers, and members of other professions, but are not meantime in a position to. train leaders in scientific agriculture and other great rural activities. . The establishment of a national School of Agriculture, the essential first step towards giving agriculture the attention it should receive in the educational system of the Dominion, commends itself as an educational reform of capital importance. . It is as important from this standpoint, and as a means, of redressing the distribution and activities of our population, as in its direct bearing on the problems of primary production. In urging that an agricultural college should be established in some suitable locality in the North Island by a combination of the schools proposed for Wellington and Auckland, the Royal Commission on University Education said there was no reason why such, a college should not develop, ultimately into a complete residential university grouped appropriately round the study of agriculture as its leading subject. The ideal presented by the Commission is that of a scheme under which education in liberal studies would be associated with training in the more directly practical concerns of rural life and work. This (the Commission observed) would be strictly in accordance with the fitness of things in a Dominion so dependent as is New Zealand on the work of its farmers. . . . How to develop widely a taste for country life, and the power of finding happiness and interest in country pursuits, and in the natural life of the country is a very practical problem. Intellectual ability naturally gravitates to the quarter where it finds most scope for its powers. . The present university system of New Zealand, if left uncorrectcd, must continue to undermine the basic industry of agriculture, on. which the whole future prosperity of the Dominion depends, inasmuch as it tends to produce » a progressive intellectual impoverishment of . the countryside. Nothing can effectively stop this draining process but an institution exerting an equally strong pull in the opposite direction, such as a well-equipped University or university college with agriculture as its central subject. Based as they are on familiar facts of life and educational development in this country, these observations provide a true guide to policy. In light of what the Commission has said, it is easy to realise the magnitude of the opportunity by which the Government is faced where agricultural education is concerned. Developed in accordance with the needs of the Dominion and its people, a national School of Agriculture will ultimately become the greatest of our educational institutions. The Danish Royal School of Agriculture has a staff of some forty professors, and its activities in education and research cover a very wide range. The money spent upon this magnificent institution has proved from every point of view a splendidly, remunerative investment. This country is a greater field for agricultural industry than Denmark. It will be many years before the New Zealand School of Agriculture can rival the Danish foundation, but the aim from the outset should be to develop a centre of agricultural education and research that ultimately will be second to none. Such an aim and the policy it connotes are demanded, not merely in the interests of agricultural industry, but in . order that our educational system as a whole may be adjusted to national needs. In the conditions brought about by the agreement between Auckland and Wellington, the Government has an opportunity of launching in the most favourable circumstances an enterprise from which the Dominion will derive far-reaching benefits as time goes on.