GIRLS’ EDUCATIONAL WEEK.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 June 1935, Page 4

GIRLS’ EDUCATIONAL WEEK.

By the very nature of their life and environment townspeople probably do not realise how much the human being is dependent for its entertainment and happiness upon relationship with others. And for the same reason they probably do not appreciate the feelings of monotony anH loneliness that sometimes accompany life in the remote districts. Children of country inhabitants are in many cases deprived of constant association with those of their own age. Many of them have no opportunity of enjoying the privileges of secondary education. They are living in an advanced age, but are missing the full measure of its benefits. It is for them that the Women’s ’Division of the Farmers’ Union has organised, as some compensation, the “girls’, education week,’’ which begins in New Plymouth to-night. The occasion will bring together in close contact for a short period about 100 girls from all parts of Taranaki. The opportunity they will have to see town life at first hand and to discover the attitude of the people, and the very companionship with one another, should do much to foster essential understanding between town and country; but the scheme provides also for attendance at a comprehensive series of lectures on subjects ranging from the purely cultural to those of immediate practical value. Given by well-known; teachers and lecturers, the instruction should not fail to encourage in the minds of a receptive audience a broader vision and a deeper understanding of world movements. Instruction for one week must necessarily be meagre, skimming only the surface, but at least it should reveal new avenues of thought and give incentive to follow them. The “education week” is admittedly only an experiment, but there is every reason to believe it will be successful. It has been tried several times in the South Island, and the results have been excellent. The Taranaki ..branch of the W.D.F.U. is to be congratulated for realising the wisdom of the idea and undertaking the considerable, amount of organisation that must be necessary to bring it to fruition. Managed by women who know personally the problems they have to solve, the division has formulated a programme that should be both interesting and informative, and the week should be beneficial to all who take advantage of it.