FARMERS AND EDUCATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19920, 16 August 1927, Page 9

FARMERS AND EDUCATION

Mr. R. E. Alexander, Dinector of Lincoln College, has lately issued quite a thoughtful Treatise on this subject with recommendations as to the methods that might be employed to improve the farmer’s knowledge of his own business and probably what is suggested might be productive of much good to the men on the land. There is one department of instruction, however, which Mr. Alexander leaves severely alone, and in our opinion the lack of knowledge of this department is the cause of at least 50 per cent, of all the farmer’s present troubles. 1 refer to the farmer’s woeful deficiency along the lines of ordinary everyday business commercialism. The average cockatoo seems to have no idea or common understanding of the laws which govern all commercialism the world over. His information on the simplest accountancy and business methods generally is child-like, and one can say without fear of contradiction that if the farmer had been better educated along commercial lines he would be very much better off today. -The land boom would not have been possible had the farmers been better educated commercially. There are not 5 per cent, of the men on the land who could prepare a profit and loss account of the year’s working which would be even approximately correct, and this is the case in spite of the fact that farming is the most intricate and difficult business, and one in which accurate figures are absolutely necessary in order to estimate the true position. Nevertheless, farmers go on from year to year often persisting in some line of the business which regularly entails a serious loss, while they may give up a department which, if they had only known it was quite profitable. I think Mr. Alexander would be well advised to add 1 ‘ Commercial Training” to this curriculum which he is suggesting for our farmers.