EDUCATIVE VALUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21234, 14 July 1932, Page 16

EDUCATIVE VALUE.

BENEFIT TO COMPETITORS.

SPREADING OF KNOWLEDGE. While the educative value of the exhibition to visitors is fully realised by the citizens of Auckland, who are every year willing to afford it their fullest patronage, the benefit to competitors, even though they are not successful in gaining awards, is perhaps not so fully recognised by those who inspect tho exhibits. There is a great educative value in the show for competitors and visitors from rural districts, and to compete, let alone win an award, an entrant must inevitably gain in knowledge.

While such sections as the district court contest and one-man farm competition are certainly of the greatest benefit to the public in showing what different parts of the province are capable of producing, at the same time they are of the greatest value to the farmers of the district, providing a stimulus for all-round development which is perhaps not forthcoming in any other way. The farmers of each area which enters tho district court contest are on their mettlo to display tho finest products of their district, and to embark on other forms of production in order to make tho fullest display possible. In this way crops, roots and other produce which otherwise might become neglected qrc kept alive, whilo visitors to tlie exhibition from the district, seeing what has been successfully grown, aro given a striking example of the fertility of their soil and directions in which their activities could be shaped to advantage.

The one-man farm exhibits which have been recently introduced provide the same stimulus and example to small farmers, and represent an amount of hard work and deep thought which many of the visitors to the show are prone to overlook. Every competitor learns by his effort to win the prize, and if ho is not among the successful, can learn oven moro by carefully observing tho salient features of tho winning exhibits. And so knowledge is quietly but steadily spread. Tho excellence of the agricultural and field-root exhibits is each year 9. source of remark among spectators, but here again, few give thought to tho timo, patience and knowledge necessary to raise winning exhibits. In their endeavours to develop crops and root vegetables sufficiently good to take an award, farmers widen their knowledge of tho potentialities of their soil, the choice of species and tho correct use of manures, and this is of benefit not only to themselves, but to their neighbours and other farmers in their districts, as 1 it inevitably becomes the common property of all, to the advantage of both the district and the individuals, Tho women's work in the homo industries section also represents much labour, whilo in some of the classes which leave scope for originality much invention •and ingenuity is shown in the uses to which common materials, such as sacking, may be put. Nothing seems to' be of absolutely no value, and tho most unlikely scraps, which in most households would bo discarded, are worked into something useful or ornamental. It is noticeablo that in nearly every case the ingenuity is displayed by country housewives, whoso ecdnomy and thrift frequently set an example for the town-dweller. Every year the children's' classes are among the largest, drawing entries from large and small schools in all parts of tho province. Here education is aided by the spirit of competition, and tasks which often would be carried out only under compulsion become a source of pride, while it is certain that the lessons imparted during the work are more lasting on account of the keen interest taken by the"' competitors.