636 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



The training is creating a new social focus. The movement is 

 essentially democratic. No question of social status arises in cases 

 of promotion. 



The most important item of instruction is rifle-shooting, as the 

 co-ordination of hand and eye and development of nerve 

 demanded by it are most readily accomplished in youth. 



A well-disciplined cadet corps benefits school discipline, while 

 the school esprit de corps reacts favorably on cadet training. 

 There is need for improved methods of instruction, but this will 

 come when the citizen officers are more experienced. School- 

 Hiasters as officers of school-boys obtain a ready obedience. 



The schools have an important work to do in the training of 

 candidates for cadetships at the Military College, for they are 

 training future permanent instructors and administrators. 



The senior cadet forces provide a vast new field for educational 

 effort, and on the effectiveness of this effort may depend the future 

 of Australia. 



5. SCHOOL GARDENING IN RELATION TO 

 AGRICULTURE. 



Bi/ A. G. Edquist, Lecturer o)i Nature Study, Education 

 Department, South Australia. 



[Abstract.] 



Educational systems are the outgrowth of social and industrial 

 demands. In new lands like Australia, a land of raw productions 

 and rural life, the industrial demands oh education are dissimilar 

 to those obtaining in the old countries of the world where manu- 

 facture forms the staple occupation of the people. 



Instead of teaching here the manual exercises of the English 

 primary schools, the manual work of our upper classes of boys 

 should be in pursuits which help to cultivate large and deep in- 

 terests in country life and rural occupations, and so help to com- 

 bat the evils of centralization. In order to create a healthy in- 

 terest in agricultural pursuits more marked provision must be made 

 for instruction in elementary agriculture and practical gardening 

 for boys in the last two years of their primary school course so as 

 to reach those who never enter our agricultural high schools and 

 colleges. Scholarships to the agricultural high schools should be 

 provided for primary school boys who wish to continue their 

 general and agricultural education. 



In the lower classes of the primary school it is advisable to re- 

 tain the present manual occupations, brushwork, and nature study, 

 and in the higher classes substitute the compulsory teaching of 

 elementary agriculture for which the nature study has furnished a 



