A ROCK AHEAD.

Wairarapa Age, 16 March 1925, Page 4

A ROCK AHEAD.

In the discussions that have taken place in the last few months on agricultural education attention has been drawn several times to the example of Denmark, which is one of the most efficient and productive agricultural countries in the world. Wo published a year ago a most interesting article on Danish agricultural education from the book of an American professor, and wc find that the same theme is now being vigorously pushed by Mr , Frank Tate (Victoria) and other cdu- I cational authorities in New Zealand. ; The principle of agricultural educa- : tion in Denmark is a general system I of adult education. That is to say, in- I stead of throwing education to the j four winds when one reaches the age of 20 Or happens to score a university degree—as is unfortunately only too often the case in New Zealand—the Danish mon and women continue their education throughout life. They have not the self-confidence—that is too common amongst us—to believe that : at any stage of their life they know ; all that is worth knowing. The Danes, ■ as Mr Tate pointed out, are the best co-operators in the world. Their , genius for co-operation has resulted in doubling and trebling the output of ■ dairy produce from their hleak and | weather-beaten little country. Is a re- ! suit like that not good enough for us? With all our advantages of climate ’ and soil and our isolation from foreign menace, we should be a very happy . and prosperous people if, by acknow- I lodging our shortcomings and setting | ourselves to learn, we could look for-1 ward to being able to increase our out- ■ put even by 50 per cent. And there is no doubt that it can be done. Another point which Mr Tate makes is that the young farmers of Denmark who go to the high schools in the winter go not only to improve their knowledge of farm subjects, but to receive a general and stimulating mind training. They return to their farms “with awakened intellectual curiosity and with the power and the desire to acquire knowledge for themselves by means of books,” But this knowledge is not all agricultural or technical knowledge. Even in the agricultural schools a large portion of the work is. cultural, and an hour a day is devoted even in these schools to community singing. That is a side of life which wp arc afraid is given too little consideration in New Zealand to-day. There is just a tendency to deride everything that has not a definite money value, and to scoff at all learning as “academic” which is not eventually to be measured in the price of butterfat or of wool. That is just as dangerous and demoralising in the long run as the neglect of technical learning. . Wc want our farmers to be not merely tillers of the soil and producers of meat and wool, but also citizens with a. healthy enjoyment in intellectual recreation and an intelligent knowledge of what is happening in the world and of. what the world is thinking and dreaming of. Without such a leaven of general knowledge farming must inevitably be one of the most deadening occupations in the world. It js just the same with the professions. . Sir Lindo Ferguson, in opening the medical school at Dunedin the other flay,, deplored .the fact that so many young men. nnw-a.-days are devoting their.whole. attention to becoming doctors, without any regard to that general cultural training which has always been associated with the medical profession. The doctor, he said, should be the best educated man in the community. And it is in this respect that the doctor and the farmer, -and even the labourer, should be on a more or less common footing. They may earn their livelihood by different means, but there is no reason whatever why they should not be equals in a geneaal democracy of culture and intellectual enjoyment of life: