200 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 



The main movement of population within rural 

 occupations themselves is the shifting from purely 

 agricultural branches to the pastoral and dairying 

 branches. Thus, whilst the numbers engaged in agri- 

 culture fell during the period 1901-11 by more than 

 25 per cent., the numbers employed in the pastoral 

 industries more than doubled, while those in the dairy- 

 ing industry nearly trebled. 



(c) Causes of the Relative Decrease in the Supply of 

 Farm Labour. The key to the retardation in the rate 

 of growth of rural population and the acceleration in 

 the expansion of numbers in urban areas is to be found 

 in the relative attractiveness of town life compared with 

 country life. This, obviously, is not the the result of a 

 single cause, for of recent years many circumstances have 

 combined to make this influence felt more keenly. 



In the first place, until quite recently, our education 

 system has not been of such a nature as to interest 

 children, even in the country, in the natural objects 

 surrounding them. The whole trend of the system for 

 at least the first decade of the present century was to 

 isolate the child from his environment in the mad rush 

 to obtain good results at the forthcoming examinations, 

 based on a curriculum which prepared mainly for clerical 

 pursuits. The Education Commission of 1912 found the 

 outstanding weakness of the system to be "want of 

 facilities for rural training," and that "in respect of 

 the great importance of agriculture to the Dominion, this 

 subject is not receiving the attention it deserves." 



Fortunately, this advantage is being remedied now 

 by the growth of the idea that "instruction in the ele- 

 mentary principles of agriculture that can be properly 

 included in the programme of primary schools ought 

 to be addressed less to the memory than to the intelligence 

 of the child. It should be based on observation of the 

 everyday facts of rural life, and on a system of simple 



