president's address — SECTION G. 153 



I shall content myself by offering a few thoughts on the last 

 proposition. 



I think that I have shown tiiat in New South Wales a great 

 deal has been clone to educate our aditlt farmers, and to help those 

 who wish to help themselves, but I cannot hel}) feeling that in this 

 we have commenced at the wrong end. It is to the rising genera- 

 tion that we must look for ]n-ofitable results from our labors, and 

 in their interests 1 should like to see a complete system of agri 

 cultural education adopted throughout the whole of Australia. 



Feeling as 1 do that, in order to make Australia an agiicultural 

 country in the highest sense, we must give our children the best 

 technical training possible, I must assume that the State will 

 undertake this line of education as it has done, whether for good 

 or for ill. Avith all the other branches of education — literary, 

 professional, and technical. After twenty-two years' practical 

 acquaintance with all the systems of education purstied in New 

 South Wales, I hope that it will not be considered out of place for 

 me to discuss the means by which om national schemes of education 

 can be made to have a stronger agricultural fl^ivor than at present, 

 and can be further supplemented by the State so as to meet a 

 distinct want for agricultural education — graduated to sviit alike 

 the free selector's son and our future professors of agriculture. 



But before I discuss the means bv which our boys can be trained 

 in the practical operations of the farm, orchard, dairy, vineyard. Sec, 

 as well as in the sciences which iiave so much bearing upon these 

 operations, I would venture to express the opinion that the principal 

 part of the child's education has been commenced before he or she 

 has come under the control of the public teachers. I cannot help 

 feeling strongly that our l>est farmers are those that have conceived 

 in their early infancy a liking for country life, a taste for outdoor 

 work, and a strong desire to add to the material wealth of their 

 country. I very much fear that v oung people who have been 

 brought up in dwellings which are deficient in ail the best attributes 

 of a home, where everythint; is squalid and ugly, and no attempt 

 is made to beautify in a simple way the home and its surroundings, 

 such children can hardly have such a love for a country life or for 

 the manual toil which is inseparable from an agricultural occupation 

 as will induce them to stay in the country with its early disad- 

 vantages, instead of congregating together into the towns and 

 cities which have such attractions for the young and thoughtless. 



In the first place, then, we must teach our boys and girls to 

 respect honest labor, to consider that manual labor is as honorable 

 as that which is followed in city offices, shops, or warehouses. 



All unselfish parents will make the home as attractive as possible 

 to the boys and girls, and provide them with such simple amuse- 

 ments and pleasures as their circumstances will permit ; will make 

 the surroundings of the farm house congenial by means of its 

 garden, its vegetable plots, its orchard and its playground ; will 



