FAIRBRIDGE FARM SCHOOL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 9

FAIRBRIDGE FARM SCHOOL

One to be Established in New South Wales Sydney, July 24. A Fairbridge farm school will shortly be established in New South Wales, probably in the western district. There will be 56 English boys in the intial draft for the farm, but later the scope of the scheme will be enlarged. The British, the Commonwealth and the New South Wales Governments have guaranteed to meet the principal part of the cost of maintaining the boys at the school, and in addition the British Government has promised £15,000 toward the costs of establishment, provided a similar amount is raised in Australia. Already £13,000 has been received in contributions.

The originator of the Fairbridge I‘arm School scheme was Kingsley I' airbridge, one of the early Rhodes scholars. I'aiibridge saw the London slums and vas moved to found the Child Migration Society which selected Western Australia for its experimental farm and established an institution at Pinjarra in that State. Australia was considered to offer the best chances of success and a beginning was made a quarter of a century ago. Fairbridge is now dead, and he is buried in what has become a garden village. The children are chosen young, nnd until they are fourteen they do not undergo any course of training. W hen they turn that nge they are taught everything they would learn at an agricultural college plus other useful arts, such as building in wood, brick and concrete. The girls learn to milk, grow vegetables, cook and launder. When the trainees have completed their course, at sixteen or seventeen years of age, they a te much sought after -by employers. In 1931 the King (then Prince of Wales) appealed for £109,000 to start a similar scheme in Canada, nnd early this year a move was made to extend the system to New South Wales.