FARM SCHOOLS FOR CHILDREN

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19664, 26 August 1935, Page 6

FARM SCHOOLS FOR CHILDREN

The Child Emigration Society (henceforth to be known officially as Fairbridge Farm Schools) had an encouraging report to give at its annual meeting held in London recently. It was only a year ago that an appeal was launched by the Prince of Wales and Mr Baldwin to raise the funds required to establish in other parts of the Empire farm schools for children on the model of the original school founded by Kingsley Fairbridge in Western Australia. Sufficient money has been raised to start work in Canada, and the Prince of Wales Fairbridgo Farm School in British Columbia is an accomplished fact. Sir Stanley Argyle, cx-Premier of Victoria, stated that a movement has been started to establish a similar settlement in that State, with the warm backing of every one who knows the original Kingsley Fairbridge Farm School. It is anticipated that the activity of the society will soon he extended to New Zealand. Kingsley Fairbridge’s methods arc universally recognised as the most satisfactory of the many which have been tried for encouraging emigration of the right kind to the Dominions. Every visitor has been impressed by the happiness of tho children, their alertness, and their disciplined independence. What is thought of their training by those best able to judge is shown by the fact that this year over 1800 applications for Fairbridge children were received from employers, mostly farmers, while the normal number of boys and girls leaving tho school in any one year is 67. No Fairbridge child has ever to look far for employment, and the interest taken by the society in his or her welfare, through a strong local committee, which is an essential part of the scheme, does not cease when he or she leaves school.

The children have the advantage of growing up in their new country, and thus of becoming accustomed to its conditions during their most malleable years. The original school had to struggle through many vicissitudes in its early days. Now, after 20 years, it is recognised by the British, Dominion and State Governments as performing a work equally as useful to the children and to the country in which they are settled. The movement deserves to prosper. It not only provides what is generally admitted to be an ideal form of Empire settlement. It is one of the most effective instruments yet devised for giving destitute children a real chance of a happy and useful life.