president's address SECTION K. 257 



adequately developed in other directions. From the stand-point 

 of a teacher of technical subjects of twenty-two' years' standing, I 

 am prepared to assert that those students are most satisfactory 

 whose prepare toay education has been most thorough, most 

 general, and not those whose undeveloped minds have been set 

 a-dabbling with so-called utilitarian subjects. Hence, I claim for 

 country children broad educational opportunities approximating to 

 those usually available to the city bred. I uphold our Australian 

 agricultural colleges as institutions of infinite value for the State, 

 but I believe that without loss of efficiency their sphere of useful- 

 ness could be enlarged by the modifications which I havei suggested. 

 I can have faith in University Chairs of Agriculture, providing 

 the incumbents are not segregated from the v.^orld and the general 

 practice of agriculture, and providing they are allowed adequate 

 means for independent research. And, finally, as the coping-stone 

 to all education and training in a community that is mainly agri- 

 cultural, I believe it to be both the interest and the duty of the 

 State to maintain at the disposal of the rural community adequate 

 means for general self-improvement, both moral and material. 



-^tVjf' 



