66 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



:\[ari H 5, 1910. 



recent years, of the claim of the agriculturist to be 

 fitted in the best possible way for the work which is to 

 be his through life. Perhaps this late recognition ■ of 

 such a claim is not without its advantages, for it has 

 come at a time when it is continually realized to 

 a greater degree that mere instruction is not education, 

 and that the aim of those who have the framing of 

 schemes for education in their hands should not be the 

 training of individuals to be merely capable of doing 

 a certain thing in a certain way. Such schemes should, 

 on the contrary, bring out the mental energies of those 

 individuals, so that they may be able to appreciate 

 the true inward meaning of what they are taught, and 

 to attain that mental independence which will lead to 

 critical consideration of the work of others, while giving 

 them the capacity usefully to extend the scope of their 

 own. 



The West Indies share with all other tropical 

 countries the circumstance that their interests are 

 essentially agricultural. Their usefulness to the rest 

 of the world must lie in the fact that they possess the 

 conditions which enable them to produce, for the non- 

 tropical zones, indispensable articles of food, clothing 

 and shelter. It must therefore be patent that the 

 education of the inhabitants of this part of the world 

 must have special reference to the interests of agri- 

 culture. This cannot mean that the standard of that 

 education should be inferior to that of the dweller incoun- 

 tries where the chief occupation is the treatment of raw 

 material, so that it may become more directly applicable 

 to the uses of man. The agriculturist, as a matter of 

 fact, has the means of true education closer to hand 

 than the follower of any other kind of occupation. He 

 is face to face with the direct results of the forces of 

 nature. He is met with the responsibility of attaining 

 a state of mind that can devise means of gaining 

 a knowledge of those forces which will enable him to 

 direct them in such a way as to be of the greatest 

 value to mankind. Finally, to this end, he is 

 provided with opportunities of observation and experi- 

 ment which are without equal as a means of broaden- 

 ing his mental sympathies, and thus giving him the 

 manner of true education. With these advantages, 

 there should be no difficulty in making agricultural 

 teaching and practice as efficient as those of any other 

 branch of knowledge. It will supply a mental training 

 that will produce the individual who takes a living 

 interest and pride in his work, the more so as it pro- 

 vides him with a means of realizing that he is no longer 

 the slave of routine, but the possessor of powers to 

 originate and modify methods of procedure in waj's 

 which form the reflection of his own personality. 



There are three broadly differing sets of circum- 

 stances under which instruction, either of an agri- 

 cultural nature, or leading to this, must be given. 

 These obtain in the primary school, in the secondary 

 .school, and, in the case where an agricultural training is 

 continued after the pupil has reached an age when 

 there is no longer any necessity for him to be subject 

 to school discipline. In the primary school, the teach- 

 ing will never be of a directly agricultural character, 

 it will, rather, be of the essence of nature study, in 

 order that the most useful and immediately applicable 

 means of education may be employed, and that the 

 mind of the pupil may become of use to him in the 

 work that he will be called upon to do when he leaves 

 school. The idea of nature stud}- will obtain, as well, 

 in the secondary school, but its scope will be widened, 

 and it will show a closer connexion with the require- 

 ments of practical agriculture. In the case of 

 a boy who goes on from this stage to the next, 

 there is always, in a proper scheme of agricultural 

 education, a transition period, during which he 

 is still subject to disciplinary measures, while at the 

 same time, he is given more freedom of action, 

 and his work becomes of a more practical nature. It is 

 at this stage that a cadetship at a Botanic Station, or 

 where this is provided, and where it is intended to take 

 up the more advanced branches of agriculture, a course 

 at an Agricultural College, becomes of use. 



The third set of circumstances under which edu- 

 cation in agricultural matters is received, is that which 

 obtains \shile the recipient is actively engaged in the 

 work of a practical agrictdturist. This is not a time 

 that has its distinct limit, like that of the conditions 

 just described. It extends just as long as the agricul- 

 tural work is being done. In other words, those who 

 gain their livelihood from the soil require, more than 

 any others, to be always ready to learn, and to seek 

 opportunities by which their knowledge may be made 

 greater. With the present progress in agriculture, it 

 is very necessary that such individuals shall begin the 

 acquisition of such knowledge under as favourable 

 conditions as possible — that they shall be set in the 

 right way, so that no time ma}- be lost, and that their 

 efforts to gain knowledge shall have the merit and use 

 of orderliness. It is easily seen, in this connexion, that 

 the Courses of Reading in Practical Agriculture, of the 

 Imperial Department of Agriculture, have be.^n devised 

 for this very purpose. The steady pursuit of these will 

 make it evident why the education of the- practical 

 agriculturist is never regarded as being finished, and 

 why active sympathy with the work of his advisers is 

 necessary to his best welfare. 



