Agricultural Education.

Southland Times, Issue 14788, 3 November 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

Agricultural Education.

The Duke of Devonshire, Lord-Presiden-of the Counoil, recently attended the annual prize distribution at the Countess of Warwick's secondary and teobnioal science school and school of agriculture at Dunmow, E s?x. After the presentation of the prizes the Duke delivered an address on secondary education. Dealing more partioul*rly with agricultural education, His Grace eaid that rural districts were not generally credited with any very great zeal ia the cause of education. What had the effect of education been upon the interests of the farming class ? The farmers generally sm that the effect of the education whish was given in our rural elementary schools was to induce the cleverest, the brightest, and the most energetic of oar boys and girls to leave i heir villages in tha country and seek for other occupations in the great towns. He did not wonder that many of the best educated people would do a great deal better to remain at home and qualify themselves to be farmers' wives, or to take part in the management of the dairy, tr c garden aud the orchard, to mewing themselves up|in stuffy workshops in manufacturing town?. He had no doubt their experienoe had been very much the same as his own — that the rural elementary school had been chiefly instrumental in depriving the farmers of those whom they might have expected to be their be so and moat competent assistants. Recently a very important committee has been formed, consisting of members of Parliament and others interested in the cause of education, whose object it was to give education a new direction to caaneraco this tendency,, and the object of which was to nuke inatructon in the elennnary schools more suited to the wants of ac agricultural population, and at the same time to make that course of instruction more attractive to those to whom it was giveD. At the instigation of this committee, and partly also on the initiative of Sir John Gorsr, the Boerd of E lucation had recently issued a long minute upon the subject of the curriculum if ruril schools, and giving suggestions aud hints how it might be usefully modifisd so as to suit the ins ruction ti the needs of the agricultural community. The circular was a very excellent circular, and contained a g«k at dea\ of good advice ; but it had batn expasei to the obvious criticism that teaohers did nut exitt who were capable of giving this new direction to our elementary inst- action, and that their exiht ng colleges were situa'ed mostly in the centre of large towns, and did not g ye to the teachers that course of instruction which would qualify them for this new direction of education. What, he then asked, had secondary education yet done for the practioal farmer ? There, he was afraid, he could not altogether acquit the farmer of some rem s n si, eime negligence, in this matter. He did not say that farmers were indifferent to the advan- j tage of sending their children to the best cc- j oondary schools which thfy could find, but he did B»y that they had been too much in the habit of sending them to those schools, not for tha purpose of making farmera or farmers' wives of them, but for the purpose of fitting them for some occupations which had no'hing whatever to do with farming It was now recognised that a sound system of secondary education, with technical education superadded, was the necessary conditions to complete succees in any industry. Our secondary schools in every part of tbe country had been, and were stiil, in oourae of reorgnisation, with the object of supplying these wants ; but still this truth, which has been reoognised by every other industry, had found the farming classes indifferent. It m'ght be that we had notyet succeeded in discovering the right class of secondary gohools to meet the necessities of agricultural interest. He was afraid our farmers had not yet realised that discoveries in science, in chemistry, physics, and physiology, and, above all, intelligence developed ia the mind of the student were jnst as important to the agricultural industry as to any other industry. It was true that the pursuit of farming did not offer the same brilliant prospect? and great pecuniary advantages as may be afforded by some other industries; still it had its compensations, and we ought not to rehx bho?e opportunities we had made, and were still making, to so organise one system, both elementary and seoondary, as to make in attraot rather than repel a part of the best and most intelligent of the rising generation to whab was after all, the largest, the most ancient, and not the least honourable of the industries to which any of our people could aspire. Holding these views, he need not say that the Board of Education welcomed cordially the appearance of this new competition in the field of technical education which has been started with so great prospects of success by the active and intelligent founder, Lady Warwiok.