EDUCATION NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15377, 12 August 1913, Page 4

EDUCATION NOTES.

BT MENTOR. • The chief inspector -under the Wanganui Education Board, Mr. G. D. Braik, has recently returned from a visit to the Australian* Commonwealth. The trip was taken in order that he might, study tho latest developments in educational methods on the other side, and he is now giving his board and the teachers of his district the. benefit of his observations in a series of short, but intensely interesting and illuminating reports on such topics as agricultural instruction in the Australian States; kindergarten teaching and the Montessori system; infant teaching in the preparatory classes, primary school education, secondary education, technical education, etc. In the course of his investigations, Mr. Braik met and exchanged views with the principal educationists of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South' Australia, and Tasmania, and he was everywhere given every possible facility for studying the various educational systems from the kindergarten to the university. Mr. Braik's first report deals with what the various Australian States are doing in the .way of agricultural instruction, and compares the conditions obtaining there with those prevailing in New Zealand. He sa y S ;_" So far as the primary schools are concerned, I believe that we are doing work superior to anything done in any of the States of the Commonwealth, and that our instructors are capable of developing it on still more progressive lines. It is when we turn to secondary school agriculture that our methods and the Australian, methods may with greater advantage be compared. In three" respects our schools are, compared with agricultural high schools of Victoria, at a very great disadvantage. The Victorian school's are built on the school farm. They have a special farm manager to look after the farm and the stock, and they have a highly-trained science teacher to look after the laboratory work.

" Of course, it is hardly to be expected that our district high schools could compete, in efficiency, with the Ballarat Agricultural Hich School, providing for the needs of a city of 45.000 inhabitants, and with an Education Department behind it willing to make any necessary expenditure. Yet. as I have already hinted, there ar e grounds for doubt whether the beet form of agricultural teaching can be done even at a well-equipped agricultural high school. I met men who had been in charge of agricultural high schools, men who had been closely associated with the work of teaching at such schools, and men whose duties as officials brought them into contact with the work and management ot such schools, and the opinion expressed by them was that the agricultural high school did not solve the problem of secondary education in agriculture. The view i 6, of course, different, and it is' contended that, in time, the schools will more than justify their existence. The balance of evidence, liowever, went to show that the problem of secondary education in agriculture is iinlike.lv to be solved by associating agricultural classes with the ordinary secondary school classes. The reasons* given are exactly those to which we ourselves have been accustomed : the agricultural section has been regarded by many parents, and in some cases by the teachers, as an encumbrance, a Kind of undesirable, if not contemptible, tail: the tendency of eome of the agricultural pupils themselves has been to feel that they are receiving third-rate instruction for a third-rate purpose; and the interests of the two sides of tho echool have been frequently in conflict.

"There are further tho craze for tho passing of examinations, and that most Pestilent social fallacy, that the agriculturist has been, is. and must remain, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. I am convinced that it is due alone to the skill and enthusiasm of our instructors, and to the reasonable outlook of some of tie parents of our children, that we have been able to secure at our district high schools so many agricultural pupils, and to prevent frequent" reactions towards the stereotyped form of secondary work. W 7 hat "is the remedy ? It lies, I believe, in the establishment of independent" junior agricultural schools, \;here agriculture would be taken, not as a mere side issue, but as the main subject, with the other subjects entirely subsidiary to it. This means breaking a*ay from school tradition, and the working of the official mind, which would round off every course of instruction, according to the prescripts of logic and educational philosophy, regardless of the fact that the very process of rounding otf may blunt the mind at the very points where it should be sharpest. English literature, including history and civics, practical mathematics, workshop practice, and some laboratory work, these should certainly be taken; but the rest, comprising the great bulk of the instruction, should be left, within certain limits, to the instructor, who will seethat his work is responsive to the needs of his district.

"To make sure that the practical work done ia in keeping with local needs, there should be a junior agricultural school committee set up in each group of district* where ft school is established" It may be said that the agricultural colleges will supply all that is required, but a moment's consideration will show that they cannot. It is the boys leaving school that m-c need to get hold* of, and we cannot send boye of 14 or so to an agricultural college. If we do not get hold of these boys at the right age we run the risk of losing them altogether. Many farmers would be willing to leave their boys at an agricultural school till they reach the age of 16 or 17, but they would not dream of lending them to an agricultural college. The experience of Melbourne, perhaps, furnishes an analogous case. It was found there that boys of from 14 to 16 drifted into nondescript employment, and could not be retained at any existing kind of school. To meet*their case, there were established junior technical schools, affording a two yeans' course of instruction in English, arithmetic, handwork and drawing, fitting the boys to take up any employment with every prospect of success. It Ls found that parents make a great effort to keep their boys at these schools until the period of apprenticeship, about the age of 16, arrives. There is now a great demand for the extension of this school. So it will be with the boys in our own rural districts. If we can provide them with the right kind of instruction the parents will make an effort to keep them at school for a two years' course, but if we do not provide that instruction the boys will turn aside to the first odd job that offers.

" And it is not the boys alone that would be provided for at the agricultural school. Courses in household science and economy, poultry-raising, orchard and dairy work wouldbo provided for the girls. Of course, instruction in secondary subjects, apart from agriculture, must be provided as hitherto ; the needs of the State make that imperative. If, however, agricultural schools of the type 1 have indicated were established, a- step of the utmost value in the development of our agricultural resources would be taken. But to return to the schools as at present constituted. Our method of sending tho agricultural pupils to the State farms aud to model farms was described by Professor Lowrie as wholly admirable. It is a question, indeed, whether we could not afford, even if wo established junior agricultural schools to dispense with a comparatively largo school farm, seeing that it is open to our pupils to visit the State farms and model farms, and even, under the direction of this supervisor, to undertake regular farm work with an approved employer. If the present arrangement is to be continued, two things must happen—(l) The board must have more money to spend in agricultural instruction; and (2) the supervisors must be allowed a freer hand in the direction of their work than they have hitherto had."

Mr. Braik concludes a most interesting report by remarking on the aggregation of nearly half the population of Australia in tho capital cities, and he goes on to urge the pressing importance of encouraging an even distribution of the people through the country districts. He contends, and probably rightly, that agricultural education of tho right kind will prove an important contribution to the solution of the difficulty.