Agricultural Education.

The framers of what I think is otherwise a good educational system have strangely enough ignored the subject of agriculture in our schools. If you search the reading books, from Standard I. to VI., you will not find a chapter devoted to domestic animals or cultivated crops. Surely this is a great omission, especially as agriculture must, for an indefinite period, be the leading industry of the Colony. The exclusion of such subjects can have but one effect upon the minds of boys reared in country districts, contempt for rural pursuits. Hence it is that we find our boys so soon as they pass Standard VI., flocking into the towns looking for genteel (?) employment—office work.

I have frequently ventilated this subject, and shall continue to do so, on the principle that "constant dropping wears a hole." It is pleasing to note that Professor Thomas, of Auckland University, has taken up the matter of Agricultural Education warmly. We want scholarships to enable boys from the National Schools to go on to the Agricultural School at Lincoln. This institution has a magnificent endowment, and the Commissioners lately employed by Government reported that the funds belonging to that institution were ample, and they strongly recommended that scholarships should be available for the sons of our farmers and others attending the public schools. If these and other recommendations made by the Commissioners are carried out, Lincoln College will soon do the work which its founders contemplated—offer free education for the intelligent sons of New Zealand farmers.

In America ample opportunities are afforded for those who cannot help themselves. In France and Germany, more especially in the latter country, the poorest peasant boy can, without cost, obtain a sound education in every subject pertaining to agriculture. Last year the French Legislature voted £161,365 for Agricultural Education. Competent professors are employed to give instruction to page 20 the sons of farmers and others during the long winter evenings. The result being, that wherever a promising young man is found, opportunity is afforded him of improving his position.

Coming nearer home, the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland have an agricultural class-book which is read in the rural schools, and in addition to this, teachers designed for rural districts have to undergo a course of instruction in elementary agriculture before they are allowed to take charge of a school. I refer to this system because I am more familiar with it than with any other outside New Zealand. My contention is, that something in this direction should be done in New Zealand—if our farmers' sons are to grow up intelligent agriculturists—men who will make New Zealand what nature has fitted her for, viz., one of the finest agricultural countries in the Southern Hemisphere.

In England, the importance of agricultural education in the public elementary schools is now receiving special attention. The Times Weekly Edition of April 4, 1890, contains the substance of a Bill introduced into Parliament by Mr Jesse Collings, M.P. According to his scheme, any School Board or Manager of a Public Elementary School may provide means for giving instruction in Agricultural and Horticultural subjects. With regard to the present Code of Education, the "Committee of Privy Council" are directed to make such alterations in it as will admit of special instruction in agricultural and horticultural subjects being given in public elementary schools.

The Science and Art Department are authorised to give grants to schools which conduct evening classes for instruction in agricultural subjects. The Bill has received support from all sides of the House.

Dairying in relation to consumable and exportable products has been considered to be a pursuit so important as to justify a visit by the secretary to various agricultural districts, with the view of giving information as to the best methods of managing dairies and the establishment of co-operative factories on a large scale, as calculated to promote efficiency and economy, and the production of articles of more uniform, and therefore more marketable, quality.

Besides all this work, the central bureau is steadily forming a library and museum, and has published already many valuable papers upon various subjects, among which may be cited wattle cultivation, fibre plants, phylloxera-proof vines, vines and fruit trees, model dairies, report on caterpillars, on English sparrows, picking and packing fruit for export, the relative evaporating power of trees and other vegetables, insect pests in wheat fields, report upon a fodder pest, worms in sheep, destruction of weevils, preserving eggs.

In concluding their first report the members of the central bureau say that "this review of the work will indicate but in a small degree the awakened interest of our agricultural and other producers in improved methods of culture, with correspondingly increased results to the individual and addition to the wealth of the community. That which has been accomplished is to be regarded simply as a preliminary step in the path of greater usefulness, and under favouring circumstances it is hoped that the whole system of agriculture, dairying, horticulture, &c., will be so advanced by the endeavour of the bureau and its district auxiliaries that an era of prosperity will be recognised as having commenced contemporaneously with the inauguration of the bureau of agriculture."

In July of last year there was a grand International Congress held in Paris in connection with the International Agricultural Exhibition, from which the English Board of Agriculture has collated and published a number of extracts. Fourteen hundred delegates from all parts of the world attended, when all matters connected with agriculture, &c., were freely discussed.