THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a Newspaper SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1947. Agricultural Bias-The Right Way

Northern Advocate, 1 March 1947, Page 4

THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a Newspaper SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1947. Agricultural Bias-The Right Way

The return to the city yesterday of 65 pupils of the Normal Intermediate School, Auckland, concluded one of the most interesting attempts to clothe education with reality. For a fortnight the children were removed from an environment of trams, hard pavements and streets which are busy for at least a portion of the day, to the heart of farming districts, where the menfolk—"and womenfolk, too —are busy all the day. They also observed at first hand the life of the miner, and cement worker. One of the important lessons which they have learned at an impressionable age is that work which is hard—and sometimes unpleasant—has its compensations. Too late in life many townbred children find their ambitions thwarted and their self-expression curbed by blind-alley occupations, contributing little either to their own happiness or the material wellbeing of their nation. Of such are Communists and malcontents made. For a young country, with vast resources hardly tapped, New Zealand already has too many of these discontented people, whose outlook would probably have been altogether different if they had chosen occupations which kept them in closer touch with nature and the realities of living. Accommodated in typical homesteads of the Hikurangi-Towai district the children had opportunity to learn how hard work, diligence and neighbourliness such as is not known in the large centres of population, can create an atmosphere of freedom and friendliness. However good the intentions of city parents may be, and however well-endowed they are with the tokens which pass for wealth in our modern civilisation, few of them can hope to provide for their children the delights which are available to almost every country child. Orchards, ponies, pets—homegrown vegetables, meat and butter . . . days in the saddle when the whole world is your oyster; trees for shade and extensive gardens and shrubs for beauty—these are some of the endowments which appeal to any normal youngster.

The opportunity to fashion an environment to individual tastes also appeals—especially to the homelover later in life, but often at a period in his career when it is impossible, through lack of training or other commitments, to give it free expression. It is to be hoped, then, that not a few of the children who have been introduced so early and so realistically to a new and better mode of living than is attainable for most city dwellers, will gain that agricultural bias and act upon if to the advantage not only of New Zealand but of themselves. Whether they do or not. they will nt least have a better understanding of the hardships and problems with which their country cousins have to contend. They will realise, too, that initiative, enterprise and the ability for clear, straight thinking are not confined to townsfolk. From the aspect of better citizenship alone, the visit has been well worth while. Educationally, perhaps, the most important days were those actually spent at places where New Zealand history began. . For those children who made the trip the early days of their nation's story will no longer be dead, faraway things. They have stood where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, followed the paths of the first missionaries, seen memorials to valiant Maori leaders, and probed among the fortifications of “the Bat’s Nest.” Provided there never ccmes the day when such visits are regarded by the participants as an additional holiday, the experiment planned by Messrs Ken Hayr, A. Wilson and others is likely to continue and extend its scope to the general betterment. If it is found that such tours cut too deeply into an already congested school year, the coopeiation of teachers maysbe obtained in arranging them during term or mid-sum-mer holidays. Country people will never tire of being hosts if escorted parties behave themselves as well, and are as eager to learn, as were the children of the Normal School.