CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL COL LEGE AND SCHOLARSHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9124, 4 August 1888, Page 3

CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL COL LEGE AND SCHOLARSHIPS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Your article on the above was well timed; for it does appear strange that in a country like New Zealand so tew of the young men manifest any liking for agricultural pursuits. The goal of their ambit-ion appears to be an appointment in the Civil Service of the colony, teaching school, or a clerkship in a lawyer's or a merchant's office, or in one of the numerous financial institutions so prominent in all our cities. Your statement is too true that "we have, admittedly, too many youths with merely literary accomplishments for the requirements of the colony, and yet we go on by prizes and stimulus of every kind to add to that number, and to swell the dreary list of the educated unemployed." Your suggestion is a good one with reference to scholarships, and it would be well if the various governing bodies who have the management of the scholarships would make them more utilitarian. What is the aim and object of the teaching which the scholarship boys are receiving to-day? Has the training any tendency to develop a spirit of self-reliance, and thus enable tnem to take their places in the battle of life ? Take the smartest scholarship boy in Auckland, and remove him at the end of his three years' term from college to a bank, a merchant's office, or a farm, and then ask the question : What training has he received during these three years to prepare him for this calling? The study of the ancient classics and the higher mathematics may tit them for literary pursuits, but for the average boys who attend our schools and obtain scholarships, a good technical and practical education is preferable, and it is gratifying to note that special attention has been directed to this question in those excellent papers which have appeared in your columns by Professor Thomas, and it would add very much to their value if he would indicate some practical maimer in which the technical education could be imparted to the generality of youths throughout the colony, more particularly in the country districts. The national importance of agriculture should lead our legislators to spend some portion of their time in efforts to develop a taste for agricultural and other industrial pursuits among the youth of this colony. The trustees of the Lincoln Agricultural College might, out; of their liberal revenues, offer some scholarships for competition. Endowed by the Canterbury Provincial Government with an area of 100,000 acres of Crown land, some 40,000 acres were sold for ±."2 per acre, thus realising £80,000. With this sum they purchased a farm within about eight miles of Christchurch, on which they erected the present college and necessary farm buildings, at a cost of something like £50,000, investing the balance (about £30,000) on mortgage at current rates. The unsold portion of the endowment, some 60,000 acres, is let for pastoral purposes, so that the rent of that property, interest on mortgage, and the produce of the 600-acre farm, should amply pay all ordinary expenditure, and leave a surplus for establishing scholarships open to all New Zealand youths.— am, 1.