FAAMING A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11751, 1 December 1898, Page 3

FAAMING A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN.

“"An excellent article, contributed to the “ Contemporary Review ” by Mrs Virginia Crawford, recounts with a good deal of detail what the women of Belgium are at. present doing in agriculture, and points out how Englishwomen might follow their examine with profit. The Flemings: she writes, have more points of contact with the Anglo-Saxons than any other European nation. The one essential difference lies in the fact that Flemish women are splendid agriculturists, and that their practical capacity for the work is being trained and developed in admirable technical schools and colleges specially equipped for the purpose, It is to a large extent through their women that agriculture, dairy-farming, and market-gardening succeed in Belgium to-day, and it- is, I am afraid, mainly through our women that they fail with us. In many rural centres in Belgium to-day gratuitous instruction in dairy work is provided throughout the summer to the peasant population. The course usually lasts three months, and is open to all girls over fifteen years of age, a practical class being limited, as in all the Belgian domestic and professional schools, to six or eight. The farmer of Flanders or Brabant who,sends his little daughter to Heverle to finish her education has every reason to congratulate himself on the result. She will return to him not, indeed, with accomplishments, unless he has specially stipulated that she should learn the piano, but with a good general education. a thorough theoretical and practical knowledge of dairy-work, including the making of cheese and butter, and, ab his option, of jpoultrv-rearing, pig-feeding, or bee-keep-ing., She will be entirely competent to keep the farm accounts, and will have some sound ekmentary knowledge of agriculture hi general, rotation .of crops, manures, etc. ; she will be proficient in all household duties, washing and ironing, cleaning,; mending, and plain cooking, and, what is even- of greater importance, she will have been thoroughly imbued with a sense of the dignity of domestic labour, and will have acquired the habit of turning her hand to any form of useful work. The staff consists of some sixty Sisters, all those actually engaged in teaching being certificated, and the whole place is a model of neatness and Flemish cleanliness. The school fees are but £l2 a year, a. sum almost inconceivably small according to English ideas. The farm is provided with all the latest appliances for agricultural work, and sheep, cattle, pigs, bees and fowls are kept. No less than eighteen kinds of cheese are made. The full dairy course lasts a year, but a short three months’ course is also given. In all the branches of study examinations are held under Government supervision, and certificates granted, so that eveiy girl can leave at eighteen fully equipped for her life’s work, and free from the .necessity of, going through a further apprenticeship. Mrs Crawford thinks that tire success of the Belgian system suggests wide possibilities for our girls in agricultural directions. Dairy work, poultry-rearing, bee-keeping, fruit and flower growing are all brought within the. sphere of a woman’s- activities. And not alone of our farming class, but of all women of every rank in life living in the country. She' acknowledges the good that Swanley College has done for women in horticulture, and urges that a similar system of training in agriculture is advisable for Englishwomen. What we need in every county in England, she continues, and what I would plead for, is something far less genteel than Swanley, some college on the same level of comfort and refinement as the great school at Heverle, for which the fees need not surely exceed £3O a year, even with inferior British management, and in connection with which the County Council could start a scheme of free scholarships obtainable by attendance, ab local classes.