10 TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



earning work, while the acquiring of ability to look after 

 their own affairs in the matter of food and clothing is 

 training of considerable value, which is lost if the pupils 

 are boarded and fed by the educational authority. Further 

 valuable training, too, is acquired in that the pupils gain 

 a knowledge of the manner of governing their conduct 

 out of working hours, they find out how to obtain reason- 

 able recreation, and acquire a sense of individual responsi- 

 bility beyond what can be attained under a system of 

 boarding together with its consequent rules and regula- 

 tions. On leaving the institution where they have been 

 trained in order to take up wage-earning employment 

 the change in the manner of living is less violent, and 

 the individual has useful experience to guide him. 



Such a course of training should suffice to produce the 

 higher grades of labourers and the types of head men 

 who find so large a place in tropical agriculture, men who 

 can work with their hands or, in subordinate capacities, 

 supervise the work of others. 



This perhaps suffices for the training of the scholars 

 from elementary schools. It is now necessary to consider 

 the facilities to be offered to those who go through the 

 secondary schools. These cases present greater com- 

 plexity, and in consequence require even more careful 

 planning, combined with an effort to see clearly the 

 position of each class of individual in the general 

 economy. 



Experience makes it clear that it is the duty, and that 

 it is within the capacity of secondary schools of the 

 grammar school type situated in agricultural districts, to 

 afford its pupils instruction in the general principles of the 

 sciences fundamental to agriculture, such as elementary 

 biology, chemistry, and physics, in addition to a good 

 sound general education, which should include the general 

 subjects that may be classed as English, elementary 

 mathematics, one classic, and one modern language. 

 This instruction in science is the least that can be done, 

 and it should be insisted on by all who are responsible for 

 educational schemes in agricultural districts. In some 

 cases this will constitute all the special training a youth 

 obtains; he simply drifts into wage-earning employment, 



