AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 29 July 1925, Page 9

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

DOMINION’S REQUIREMENTS

(by TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION. AVELLINGTON, July 29. Giving evidence before the University Commission to-day, Air G. S. Peren, professor of agriculture, Victoria University, (stated that facilities for training for research work for employment in the Department of Agriculture or as a teacher of agriculture were at the. moment deplorably weak. The additional facilities required would entail considerable expenditure. There was a. marked need for a number of well-trained teachers, but owing to the small size of the country the annual requirements were proportionately small. With Lincoln College in she South Island, one new school in the Nortl} Island would he quite sufficient to meet the requirements of the country for many years to come. There was an enormous field for agricultural research in the Dominion, and if grants were made for two schools in the North Island one school should confine its schedules to research, so that unnecessary duplication would be avoided. and the" money well spent. Unless either the Government or the university came forward with a hold policy and • was strong enough to adhere to it the present effort to establish facilities for training in keeping with the Dominion’s position as an agricultural country would he at the mercy of sectional and selfish interests, and agricultural education in the university would he doomed to a period of anaemic mediocritv.