The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1929. BOYS AND THE LAND.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 March 1929, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1929. BOYS AND THE LAND.

JOelivered every evening by 6 o'clock in Ifawera. Manaia, Norinanbj. Okaiawa, Elikam, Mangntoki, KapoDga. Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Hoad, and Ararata.

A topic of interest throughout New Zealand to-day is “the bias of education” in its relation to the problem of unemployment and the preservation of the balance between rural and urban industries. It is satisfactory to note that this subject twas discussed in some of its phases at this week’ meeting of | the Board of Governors of the Harwera Technical High School. When the chairman expressed himself as believing that “all the talk about the agricultral course was ridiculous,” we understood him to be referring to the advocacy of agricultural science as a school subject with the object of stop- j ping the drift of boys to the town. In making that statement and his supporting remark to the effect that the agricultural course alone would not result in more boys going on the land, the chairman was merely expressing the irritation many people experience when they read the reported utterances of those who claim that a recasting of .the school syllabus will solve the problems created by the townward drift: Though it is true that too many of our youths taking secondary school courses are hoping to enter the “white collar jobs,” it is not true that that tendency can be arrested merely by teaching more boys how to plough and fewer of them how to use a typewriter, for there still remains for solution the problem of finding the land which these youths may farm. When the land has been found the question presents itslf to the boy: How is he to get it? The chairman of the school board said the other evening that “the only way he could see was to give boys land for nothing until they got on their feet.” The headmaster stated that there was a difference of opinion between the farmers assisting on the practical side of the school’s agricultural work as to whejther a boy without substantial capital • had any prospects on the land. That statement directs attention to another common subject of controversy. Everybody knows that some of the best farmers in New Zealand are men who “started with nothing.” Those men, if asked how they did it will invariably reply “by hard work.” Many of them, too, will stoutly maintain, that the present-day youth could go and do likewise had he the ibcart for hard work. But a bare statement of that kind is not calculated to assist the boy who is hesitating in his choice of careers between town and country. He may be persuaded that at the end of a few years’ work and plain living he would be possessed of much useful knowledge and some money, but no one is in a position to guarantee that ati the end of his apprenticeship period land and finance will be available to him. It is not strange therefore that the boy <who can obtain two to four years at ai secondary school is not entranced with the prospects afforded him by the land. But apart altogether from these very practical considerations, it is also true that the country does not appeal to the youth of to-day with the same force as does the city. On the land there is the certainty of much hard manual labour, isolation of varying degrees, and attendant discomforts. There are certainly compensations—very solid ones for the farmer who succeeds —but before these can be utilised to the full in endeavours to incline youthful ambitions towards the land, some means will have. to be devised of making their enjoyment by the right type of boy more reasonably certain than is the case at present. Many people are urging, that New Zealand boys should be encouraged to look to the land for their careers, but few arc devoting themselves to the all-import-ant question of ways and means. One of the few encouraging signs that something more than lip-service is being given in this direction has been provided by Mr Bowley, secretary of the Department of Labour, who delivered before .the New Zealand Farmers’ Union an impressive statement, based on the results of his own experience in the task of plaining boys in occupations. Mr Bowley showed on that occasion that he had a thorough understanding of the position, in its many phases, and he was invited to collaborate with the secretary of the union in an endeavour to formuatc a practical scheme for attracting boys to the land. This week it was’reported that good progress was being made and that it was anticipated an outline of a scheme would be placed before the Minister of Labour (the! Hon. W. A. Yeiteh) in the near future. The publication of the details will do good, if it. serves to crystallise public and political opinion, on a subject which so far has been discussed only in very general terms.