RURAL EDUCATION.

Franklin Times, Volume XXII, Issue 8, 20 January 1932, Page 7

RURAL EDUCATION.

INTERESTING PROSPECTUS. We have received a copy of the prospectus of the Southbridge District High School (Ellesmere County, Canterbury) and in view of the fact that the aims seem to be along the lines advocated for and to a large extent followed in this district, a survey may be of interest to readers.

The brochure, a first production of its kind for the school, is a tasteful example of the printer’s art, from the office of the “Ellesmere Guardian” (Leeston). The cover is especially attractive, the decoration scheme being in the pleasing royal blue and gold colours of the school. The letterpress is cf an excellently clear type face, and the photography reproduction gives the stranger a very fair idea of the school buildings and surroundings. The curriculum seems designed to give pupils a good general grounding according to their prospective spheres of after-school life, “a cultural and practical course suited to the children of a district that is primarily agricultural, while included are commercial subjects designed for those wishing to enter business life, and also the more purely academic subjects for those aiming at the University entrance examination and a professional career.” English, history, and arithmetic are compulsory subjects for all, and also' two years at general science. For boys, agricultural and dairying subjects are obligatory. At least 75 per cent of the time in the latter courses is devoted to practical work in the garden plots, and in indoor experiments with seeds, soils, milk, and so on. The school is well advanced in woodwork. For the girls, home science, cookery and dressmaking are compulsory, the cookery room being fitted up with electric ranges. Horticulture is taught, for both flower and vegetable gardens. One notes, too, that home plots are encouraged, in which the boys carry out a definite scheme of farm work, likely to he educative, engender enthusiasm, and have beneficial practical results. In these hard times it is interesting to quote this paragraph: “A supply of second-hand textbooks in good condition is always available for those who prefer them at the beginning of the year, from pupils who have left. This helps to reduce considerably the cost.” Homework Is kept down to a minimum. For an early effort the booklet is a very creditable accomplishment, on the part of the school, and no doubt as year succeeds year it will be developed. Parents tike these annual magazines, which are carefully put away and added to every year, so that a complete record of the history of the school is at hand. There is scope for a much larger production, to include records of the major school sports, essays by the scholars, prose and poetical efforts, and other features, but of course these things must be gradually developed, for a young institution must walk before it can run.

There is just one feature which strikes us as being capable of easy but desirable improvement, and that is the name. Where a school is a county institution, and the town in which it happens to be located does not bear the name of the county (as,

for example, Ashburton) or where the

town is not, like Pukekohe, unquestionably the county centre, then the school itself and its magazine should certainly bear the county title, otherwise the nomenclature smacks too much of the intolerable spirit of petty parochialism. Such favoured secondary town, not satisfied with being the “seat of learning,” gives the outsider the impression that it is also grasp-

ing the kudos due to the county as a whole, and the Importance of the institution itself in the eyes of interested folk in other parts is diminished by the to some extent misleading name. This blemish, however, is one that could be very easily wiped off. We congratulate the school on its progress, and wish it continued suo-> cess..