EDUCATING THE FARMER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18197, 16 September 1922, Page 10

EDUCATING THE FARMER

UNIVERSITY LECTURESHIP.

PROPOSALS OF COMMITTEE.

The establishment of a lectureship in agriculture at the Auckland University College was the subject of a deputation from the Auckland Agricultural Education Committee, consisting of Messrs. F. Carr Rollett T. H. Patterson, R. W. Roche, and P. R, Callaghan, which waited on the Professorial Board of the University College yesterday. Attention was drawn to the fact that, although agriculture waa now a subject for the B.A. degree, there was no provision for teaching the subject at any of the university colleges, and it was, therefore, likely to remain a dead letter. Mr. Callaghan mentioned that agriculture had been placed in the B.A. curriculum especially to meet the requirements of teachers who chose the arts course in preference to others on account of the improvement it effected in their professional status. As the securing of a degree in agriculture involved spending some years at Lincoln College Auckland teachers were not at all likely to study agriculture beyond the present certificate requirements. Nevertheless, onoe the subject received recognition at the college, teachers would be induced to proceed to use it for degree purposes. The extension of agricultural tuition in secondary and primary schools and among farmers, had been handicapped by lack of trailed teachers and instructors, and the establishment of a lectureship would go far to overcome this difficulty. The lecturer would be available, added the speaker, to afcsist the various professors of natural science in .guiding the students of agriculture, would deliver lectures in agriculture, conduct practical field work, and short courses at the State experimental farms, so that the scientific studies of the laboratorv and the practical ones of the field would proceed contemporaneously. . Mr. Callaghan made tentative suggestions as to the financing of this lectureship, which it was hoped would pave the wav for the college of agriculture; that it was honed to establish near Auckland. Bv beeinnine in a modest way, and by providing trained for the primary and secondary schools, a large number of prosnective students would be available when the rollpge was pst^blis^ed. Mr. Patterson urged that the University CoPege should give a lead in extending the facilities for tuition in the higher branches of agriculture, for this would-be keenly by farmers, and would fit in with the pronosals for equipping farm schools. He mentioned that on the occasion of a recent visit to HawkesHiry College, New South Wales, he had snoken to nine young New Zealanders, all of them from the North Island, who. in* the absence of ready facilities to secure agricultural training in their own land, had been obliged to go overseas. There was always the danger that thee hitrhly-desir-aMe young farmers wonld be lost to New Zealand, and it. was something of a reproach to us ..that they were obliged to resort to other countries for what should .be readily obtainable at home. ' The proposal was also strongly supported bv Messrs. Rollett and Roche. After discussion it was resolved by the board to suorort the proposal. The proposal will at an early d?te lie nlaced before the University College Council.