402 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



December 21, 1912. 



and ultimately the Final, Examination. For both of 

 these, he must continue to be engaged in agricultural 

 work, either on an estate or under an agricultural 

 department, and a nominal period of one year of such 

 work for each of these stages is insisted upon. In the 

 examinations, the thoroughness of this practical work 

 is tested in the case of each candidate by a most 

 efficient method that will be described. 



This efficiency has been gained by holding oral, as 

 well as written, examinations in each stage. In the 

 preliminary stage this is conducted by one or more of 

 the agricultural officers in each island. It is, however, 

 in the Intermediate and Final Examinations that the 

 great necessity of the oral part of the tests has been 

 realized, and its efficacy has been shown. This is 

 because it is conducted in these stages by planters who 

 hold an acknowledged position as practical agriculturists 

 in the island where they live, and because no certificate 

 of a pass by a candidate in those stages can be issued 

 until it has received the signatures of the local exami- 

 ners; at the same time, in order to avoid subsequent 

 misunderstanding, the certificates of candidates who 

 have gained their experience in an agricultural experi- 

 ment station alone are endorsed with a statement of 

 this fact. As these examiners naturally satisfy them- 

 selves as to the usefulness of the practical experience 

 and knowledge of the candidate before they will report 

 his fitness to pass, it follows that his possession of 

 a certificate countersigned by them forms the best 

 possible guarantee that he can be entrusted with the 

 work on an estate, connected with the subjects that he 

 has offered for examination. 



The stages of the courses are devised so that a pass 

 gained by a candidate in the Intermediate Examination 

 testifies to his fitness to conduct the work of an overseer 

 on an estate of the kind where he has gained his expe- 

 rience; while the possession of a certificate of the Final 

 Examination entitles him to be regarded as being fitted 

 to undertake the duties of manager on such an estate. 

 The testimony by his oral examiners of his ability, thus 

 possessed by him, is the most important outcome of 

 the scheme; and too much cannot be said of the 

 thorough way that the reports by those exaaiiners have 

 always shown them to have done their work. 



It should be evident, from what has been said, that 

 these courses and examinations cannot be regardedjjas 

 having merely the nature of home reading courses, or 

 similar schemes, which simply enable the candidate to 

 pass an examination on a basis of what is often called 



'book learning'. The way in which they are conducted 

 gives them an eminently practical value, both in their 

 oral and written parts: and the recognition of their 

 usefulness, by practical agriculturists who employ men 

 doing the work of the candidates, is their strongest 

 feature. 



A matter of indirect interest that has transpired 

 during the examination of the papers is the almost 

 invariable superiority of the style and form of the 

 answers in those islands where secondary agricultural 

 education has been established for some years. These 

 answers generally show that candidates possess a far 

 greater ability to think correctly and marshal their 

 facts in an orderly manner, where the advantages of 

 such education exist, than that shown where they are 

 absent or are of comparatively recent introduction. 

 The import of this circumstance is greater than may 

 be realized at first, for it means that in the more 

 favoured islands, the educational system has become 

 such as to aid in the production of individuals who are 

 the most fitted to assist in leading the thought of the 

 community. It is one of the many examples where 

 the introduction of a S3'stem, or the making of a reform, 

 has led to results of wider application than was 

 expected at first — results whose importance is not 

 patent to everyone, because their value cannot be 

 expressed through the medium of figures in statistics. 



A short account of the history to the present of the 

 examinations for the reading courses will not be out 

 of place. The first examinations in the three grades 

 were held as follows: preliminary, February 1909; 

 intermediate, November 1909; final, November 1910. 

 The statistical details given after the end of this article 

 show that the numbers of examinations and candidates 

 have been: preliminary.five examinations, with 62 candid- 

 ates of whom 47 passed; intermediate, four examinations, 

 with 34 candidates of whom 25 passed; final, three exam- 

 inations, with 12 candidates of whom 8 passed. The 

 reason for the decrease in the number of candidates 

 appears to be chiefly that the examinations have quickly 

 come to be regarded as a serious matter — not to be taken 

 up lightly with the chief aim of getting a certificate of 

 some kind; there is the additional circumstance 

 that no candidates have come forward from Bar- 

 bados in recent years. With this decrease in num- 

 bers there has, however, been an encouraging 

 improvement in the general standard of the papers 

 that are being sent up; and this circumstance, 

 rather than the numbers of candidates entering, makes 

 for Lhe strength and stability of the scheme. 



