A BETTER SYSTEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 June 1924, Page 10

A BETTER SYSTEM.

FOR AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION. VIEWS OF EDUCATIONISTS. 'Agricultural education was a subject discussed at some length at last week’s meeting of the Council of Education, and a motion urging the department to systematise instruction was carried. The chairman (Mr J. Caughley) said he thought there should be at least one inspector of agriculture for the purpose of systematising instruction. What he wanted to know was if education boards would object to having all instructors being put under the direct supervision of the inspector. Systems of instruction at present differed very widely. He thought that the boards "should be circularised in order to ascertain their views.

The question was a very big one, said Mr W. A. Banks (Rangiora), who added that his opinion was that there should be' something done towards setting up a committee of experts to go into the details of the matter.

Mr E. C. Banks (Auckland) said that there was at present no step from the primary schools to’the universities. He thought that the Ruakura and Weraroa farms should be established agricultural high schools, and should be under the control of the Education Department, not the' Agricultural Department. What they wanted the department to do was to set up a commission to consider the matter, and ensure that there should be students coming forward for the professors to teach. It was felt that there should be an inspector in charge of the whole instruction, but that the teachers should be under the control of the boards. Mr F. Milner ((Waitaki High School) said that when the boys at his school finished their agricultural course they found great difficulty in going on to the universities. It" would be found that the agricultural course in the secondary schools was little more than an academic course.

Lack of public support for the rural course, said Mr F. H. Bakewell (Dunedin) was due to the fact that the course involved an abandonment of matriculation honours.

A warning against systematising on too strict a scale was issued by Dr. E. Marsden (Assistant,Director of Education). What was really wanted was a ruralised course in secondary schools as a whole. There was no use hiding the fact that the average pupils taking the agricultural course were the “duds.” The intelligence test had made the discovery that the average agricultural pupils were at least a year and a half behind other pupils as" far as mental abilities went.

Mr W. W. Bird (Wellington) said that the difficulty had been to obtain teachers to teach\ agricultural science. The chairman said he thought it was time they set post-primary courses in proper order, to suit the cultural needs of the community, and entrance to the university should begin where that course left off. He was hoping that they would get some solution of the accredited system. A rural course carried out in a proper wav, with a necessary amount of instruction in subjects such as English, should get the samecredit as any other coui-.se. After some further discussion the following motion was carried:

•‘That the department he urged to systematise agricultural instruction from the primary schools to the university, ami that the curricula in post-primary .schools lie broadened in this direction, and the matriculation examinations he amended accordingly/ ’ The following motion was also carried : “That the Government Experimental Farms, and the Lincoln Agricultural College should he turned into Agricultural High Schools under the control at least, as far as the teaching is concerned, of the Minister of Education.”