] ()0 Rural Education in our Village Schools. 



that is to say that the syllabus does interfere with proper 

 instruction being given. In five other cases this was con- 

 sidered to be partly the case. Against these views we have to 

 set off only five absolutely and one qualified negative answers. 

 Twelve indefinite answers including some failures to answer, 

 were also noted. 



Any one who, like the author of this paper, has had the 

 opportunity of questioning large numbers of rural teachers, 

 cannot have failed to note how little thought they have given 

 to making ordinary school subjects agricultural in tone. The 

 answers to this particular question, and to a certain extent the 

 answers that follow, lead one to believe that others do not 

 realise the possibilities or the importance of doing so. The 

 history of Agriculture is so full of interest, not to say romance, 

 that one shudders to think of its absolute neglect as a school 

 subject. Having of recent years taken the trouble to gather 

 information on the point, the writer is strong in the opinion 

 that few, if any, of the best instructed young men from the 

 country schools have ever had the opportunity of hearing 

 the names, let alone the doings, of TuU, Townsend, or Bake well, 

 even though they have followed up their elementary education 

 by going to continuation classes. Something has been done to 

 make reading books agricultural, but little to make history, 

 geography, and arithmetic (in its advanced stages) rural in 

 sympathy. Therefore, without exaggeration, one may say 

 village school children, when learning of the past, only hear 

 about the doings in towns or cities, of wars and soldiers, and of 

 people generally who make names for themselves in every 

 other occupation but that of agriculture. One is further led to 

 believe that when the young mind in the country school 

 is being improved about the arrangement of the earth's surface, 

 it is not deemed necessary to instruct upon those matters which 

 lead to variation in the production of food or other natural 

 produce of the soil. There is little evidence to show that the 

 problems in mensuration or on other calculations, set to village 

 scholars, are likely to further either sj-mpathy with or know- 

 ledge of matters useful in husbandry. If matters are as 

 described, and few will doubt that they are so, it is surely 

 as necessary to alter the treatment of ordinary school subjects 

 as to introduce — valuable as they undoubtedly are — nature 

 study, gardening, or carpentering into the syllabus. 



The questions dealt with above were followed by one 

 asking for suggestions as to improvements. The first part as 

 regards teachers was answered as follows : — 



iSix correspondents suggested that only teachers from the 

 rural population or with an interest in and knowledge of 

 country life should be selected. 



