BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ CLUBS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1930, Page 8

BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ CLUBS.

The work of the Boys’ and Girls’ Agricultural Clubs in Taranaki is now well known beyond the confines of the province. The movement had its early difficulties, and there are still conditions that could be improved.' But on the whole it can claim to be firmly established as a definite aid to the farmers. and farmers’ wives of the future. 'The competitions have stimulated powers of observation among the boys and girls, and, it is hoped, have shown them also that if a certain amount of hard work is unavoidable in any phase of husbandry, well-directed effort will bring its own reward. This is perhaps tho most valuable of the clubs’ functions, for it is the drudgery of farm work that is often the only characteristic that is made clear to the country boy or girl, and the drift to the town is the result. When they can learn that by doing things properly they can eliminate some of the drudgery and attain better results a life on the land assumes a more attractive phase. Nor has the beneficial work of the chibs been confined to the boys and girls. Their parents and friends have be.en equally interested. in the experiments and competitions, with the result that the province has benefited and the care and feeding of stock has received greater attention than in the past. Last year the clubs set out to find how diseases among crops can be controlled, and they have amassed a considerable amount of useful information in this regard. Mr. R. G. Ridliiig, the Taranaki Education Board’s organising teacher in agriculture, whose excellent work in connection with the clubs has done so much, to bring about their success, visualised tlie work of the clubs being extended to the training of girls for domestic duties ou farms. This is looking ahead, but the clubs themselves are the outcome of enthusiasm and hard work, and there seems no reason why their scope should net be extended in due course. That tliere is need for a’ "back to the land.” movement in New Zealand is undoubted. This will be impossible unless the young folk are given an interest in the work they are asked to undertake, and the only way to create that interest is by giving them the opportunity of understanding to what the hard work is leading and the results that may be looked for or improved upon. That is the work the clubs are trying to perform, and they deserve the warmest support in ■ their endeavour.