CHILD MIGRATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18580, 14 December 1934, Page 14

CHILD MIGRATION

TRAINING FOR LAND ENGLISH PLAN’S SUCCESS A through passenger by the Aorangi at Auckland was Major M. Trew, of London, who has been selected by the committee of the Child Emigration Society (Fairbridge Farm Schools) as the prmc.pai of a new farm school which will be opened in British Columbia. Major Trew, wild is accompanied oy Mrs. Trew, recently retired from the Coldstream Guards, in which he served for 20 years. “Tire Fairbridge. farm school movement,” said Major Trew, "was begun % Mr. Kingsley Fairbridge, a former Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, in 1912, at Pinjarra, SO miles from Perth, in’ Western Australia. The object of the movement was to take children chiefly from the. poorer classes in England ami Scotland, and in a better environment to train them for the land. "Since the beginning of the movement ’many difficulties have been encountered, but these have been overcome. To-day the farm school in Western Australia is in a flourishing position, with .®jt children, mostly boys, under Colonel Heath, formerly of the Grenadier Guards. The afmual total leaving the school is about *7O boys and girls,, and for that number there are something like 1000 applications." * Major Trew said children between the ages of seven and 10 years were selected and were required to pass a strict medical examination before they were sent out* In Western Australia they all went through the ordinary school curriculum on the farm by arrangement with the State authorities. The school leaving age at 14, and then the children concentrated on farm and domestic duties. When they were between 154 and 16 .yeirs of age they were prepared to go to WOrk, but from that time until they were if years of age half of their wages were sent back to the farm school ana the

amounts: were banked for them. In addition, each. boy and girl was visited (Sice a: year by an official of the school with the-object of noting progress. ' tvT have heard, that'there is a possibility: of farm schools being started in other parts of the Empire,’* said Major Trew. “I have heard that New Zealand has been mentioned. The movement is a thoroughly sound one. and 1 am convinced there is a great future for more child emigration.”