X.\TI\K KDI'CATIOX IN Till-: TKANSKKI. 465 



The Victorian Department of Education controls 2,000 primary schools, 

 with their plots and gardens. Of these schools, 700 have regular courses 

 in agriculture and Xature-study. and before leaving the primary school, 

 the pupil is taught the signilicance of schoolroom and plot experiments 

 of an elementary character, with plants and crops. ... In order to 

 provide suitable teachers to take agricultural subjects in the primary 

 and secondary schools, courses of lectures on practical agriculture, accom- 

 panied by weekly deuKnistrations of agricultural principles, are given at 

 the Teachers' Training College. 



From time to time attention ha.s been drawn to the necessity 

 for including agriculture in the school curricukmi here in South 

 Africa, but up to the ])resent nothing has been done in this 

 direction. 



That there are difficuhies in the way is freely admitted; 

 in fact, they are on no account to be under-estimated. But un- 

 less we address ourselves to the problem of overcoming these 

 difficulties we shall be in danger of facing a much greater pro- 

 blem not many years hence. 



A course adapted to the exigencies of our climate could be 

 majjped out, providing for practical work in the rainy season, 

 and theory in the cold, dry months of the year. If all the schools 

 could not come into line in this respect, at least the great 

 majority could, and the main difficulties which we would have 

 to face have ap])arently been already faced elsewhere. In pre- 

 vious papers* 1 have already emphasised the necessity for intro- 

 ducing this subject into oitr native schools in the interests of the 

 State, pointing out that both men and women have their part 

 in native agriculture, and so agriculture is specially suitable as 

 a school subject. The compelling factor is to be found in the 

 enormous increase of the native population and the consequent 

 using up of all available land. In a measurably short peric:>d 

 we shall be in the midst of serious difficulty unless we inculcate 

 intensive methods of cultivation, and so postpone the crisis, 

 hoping that, in the meantime, economic factors will be at work 

 adjusting the whole situation. 



One cannot over-emphasise the importance of this sugges- 

 tion, and it is to be hoped that serious consideration will be 

 given to the mapping out of a suitable course, the introduction 

 of the subject into our primary schools — especially, though by 

 no means exclusively, our native schools — and the training of 

 teachers in agriculture. 



In any case, if in our native education we applied the 

 principle of proceeding from the known to the unknown, we 

 could hardly find a better starting point than is to be found here 

 — the cattlefold and the mealie garden. 



V. The Curriculum. 



I. WHAT WE TEACH THE NATIVE. 



We have already stated that the ordinary curriculum for 

 European schools is employed practically in its entirety in the 



* Rept. S.A. .Assn. for Adv. of Science. Kimberley (1914), pp.151-164 : 

 Pretoria (1915), pp. 178-192. 



