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adequate career to women, nor do the}* frequently develop sufficient 

 skill in field work to open up careers for themselves. A great increase 

 in women field workers would almost inevitably reduce the standard 

 of work. On the other hand, if a woman is to marry and settle down, 

 this field work is not a satisfactory training for housewifery. Nowhere 

 in country districts is the art of the housewife at such a low ebb as in 

 districts in which it is common for women to work in the fields. The 

 effect of unskilled field work on the character and bearing of women 

 may easily be seen in districts in which numbers have been employed. 

 Agriculture, especially progressive agriculture, can offer careers to 

 many women in the lighter branches of skilled work in the dairy industry, 

 market-gardening, fruit-farming, and poultry-keeping ; and if rural 

 industries develop alongside progressive agriculture, the factories for 

 making butter and cheese, sugar or starch, etc., should provide openings 

 for them. Without intelligent and energetic womeu no real develop- 

 ment of country life will be possible, but unskilled field work does not 

 develop the type of woman that will be required. 



There is also the question of boy labour* and the training of adolescents 

 for skilled and responsible work. The work of many a boy of thirteen 

 years of age on farms is merely that of bootblack, messenger, and general 

 drudge. He is half attached to the kitchen, half attached to the yard, 

 and few of his duties require much skill or intelligence. The age of 

 fourteen years is sufficiently early to begin learning the real work 

 of the farm, and ultimately much better results would be obtained 

 if part-time education could be continued after this age is reached. 

 There are no technical schools for farm workers similar to those in which 

 the town engineer is trained, yet if he is to do skilled work it will make 

 as great demands on general intelligence. and special skill as the work 

 of the engineer. In the provisions for agricultural education which 

 will be made after the war, the need of the farm worker must be 

 remembered. Many of the evening technical classes which have been 

 held in country villages have been more or less failures. Teachers 

 were not always the best ; the boy had little incentive to study or work 

 because increased skill did not bring increased wages, and his daily 

 work left little available energy for evening study. The technical 

 education of the future will have to be given in the day-time, either 

 whole days during certain seasons, or part-time during the autumn 

 or winter. If they had contact with skilled men on the farms where 

 they were employed, many boys would pick up the rudiments of know- 

 ledge and skill, and develop a taste for technical education. 



* In 1901 there were nearly 20,000 boys between the ages of 10 and 14 years 

 engaged in agriculture, and in 1911 less than 10,000, or less than half the number 

 at the previous census. The decline in number was especially important among 

 boys of 10 to 13 years of age. This class fell from 3,376 in 1901 to 587 in 1911. 

 But from July, 1914, to July, 1916, some 15,000 boys under normal age had been 

 released from school for farm work, and the number is now probably 20,000. 

 In all there are probably nearly 30,000 boys under 14 years of age employed on 

 farms. 



