HOW BEST TO TEACH THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1500, 14 August 1880, Page 6

HOW BEST TO TEACH THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION.

By William Jbnnbb.

A shcrb time since my attention was called to the report of the School of Agriculture and a leading article in one of your Christchurch contemporaries. Being particularly interested in the question of agriculture, and believing that your valuable paper would permit me to speak to more of the agricultural population than I could in any other way, I venture to draw attention to what seems to me a very important subjeot : ithe agricultural education of the youth of this country. From the Canterbury College Calendar I learn that there is a School of Agriculture about twelve miles from the City of Christchurch, and from the syllabus I gather that ts object and aim are similar to the Koyal College of Agriculture, Cirencester, in the Home country. If this be the case, I want to ask— Will it reaoh, by itself, either directly or Indirectly, the majority of the families seeking a livelihood by the practice of agriculture? Similar colleges at Home have not done so.

Within the past seven years the Home Government— especially the Education Department—has had before it the problem how best to reaoh the agricultural population, and impart to it the true principles of agriculture. About five years ago, through the Science and Art Department, week night classes were started in different parts of the country, and taught by qualified teachers. The first year some 800 youths and men attended, and after a six months' course went up for examination. The numbers have steadily Increased, and the students are numbered by thousands. But even this is not considered satisfactory, The farmers do not take to it kindly, and in order to win these it is neoessary for the present teaohers to undo much that has been done. They have to say, because practice demands it, that even the motto of the Royal Agricultural Society of England is misleading ; and inotead of being " practice with science," it should be the " science of practice." What we call the science of agriculture is the collected experiences of farmers in all ages and in all countries, under all circumstances. It is not a practice tacked on to a science — a practice with science — but a methodised praotice, in which we have arranged the experience of those who have gone before ns in this department of labour. The teachers nave further to point out that while there are certain principles applicable to all soils and all climates, every looality requires that these principles should be applied in a modified form or in a varying way. Hence the Chambers of Agriculture at Home are seriously considering the advisability of having in every county of England a School of Agriculture, in whioh. can be studied the particular way in which the principles of agriculture may be best applied in that partionlar district. It is intended that the week evening classes shall be indirectly conneoted with the schools, and directly, as now, with the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, Considering these facts, I would further ask — Would it not be wise for the people of New Zealand, in the agricultural education question, to work from the point that the people of the Home Country have reached ? Seeing where they have failed, is it not possible for us to avoid the failures, and, by at once imparting to the youth of this land a knowledge of the elementary principles of agriculture, prevent the exhaustion of the soil?

In the soil is the nation's wealth. We may retain it by imparting & knowledge of agriculture to our youth, or by neglecting to do bo we 1 may allow it wings to fly away, as in some of the other Colonies.

At the Canterbury and Otago Universities special courses of lectures might be given to teachers, and at their close an examination held, so that all who passed might be certified as competent to give instrnctlon in the elements of agriculture. The Chambers of Commerce, the Agricultural Companies, and such societies &s the Caledonian Society, might be the means of obtaining the use of school buildings, and aiding the teachers in such a work. By some much means as the foregoing studentß of agriculture might have instruction without being taken from their daily employment, be able to practice what they were taught, and find that the work of an agriculturist; is one of the best engagements of a man's life.

Hoping that these few words may induce some of your numerous readers to give us their opinions, I will now conclude. Rotheaay, August sth.