932 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



children can own vegetable gardens and learn to grow beans, cabbages, tomatoes, 

 &c., at very slight cost. 



A special knowledge of plant life is gained by looking after the various gardens 

 mentioned^above, but, as well as this, the children learn incidentally many things 

 which will* be of value to them in rural life. 



(iii) Tlie Problem of Rural Education In Irish Primary Schools. 

 By the Right Eev. Dr. Folev, Bishop of Kildare. 



Agriculture should not be regarded os a subject which can be taught in the 

 primary schools by the ordinary school ttachers. All that appears feasible in 

 this connection is that there should be central schools in which pupils, who 

 have gone through the^primary school course, would be taught the principles 

 involved in agricultural operations by the county agricultural instructor, or by 

 specially trained teachers under his direction, and working under the supervision 

 of the department of Agricultural and Technical Instruction. 



As regards gardening, much could and should be done in the primary schools ; 

 and it is satisfactory to know that this was the conclusion unanimously arrived 

 at by a committee consisting of representatives of the National Board of Primary 

 Education and of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. It 

 was the "eneral feeling of the committee that a good deal could be done by means 

 of suitable object-lessons to familiarise tlie pupils of the primary schools with 

 natural phenomena, and in this way to prepare their minds for the reception 

 of technical knowledge, should their circumstances put them in the way of 

 obtaining it. The first thing required is power to acquire school plots com- 

 pulsorily ; and it is hoped that the Chief Secretary will assist in gaining this 

 end. Otherwise it will not be possible to introduce the subject of gardening 

 extensively into the schools of Ireland. These gardi'iis would be of the greatest 

 service to the rural schools, not merely from the utilitarian point of view, but also 

 from that of true education, Nothing is better calculated to impart interest and 

 actuality to the object-lessons in the schools. 



The question of the training of the teachers also needs consideration. Although 

 Ireland is an agricultural country, a school teacher is rarely -met who has any 

 taste for gardening or agriculture. Hence the work will have to be begun de novo, 

 and the foundations laid in the training colleges. 



(iv) Rural Education. By George Fletcher, 



It seems desirable to define as clearly as may be the nature of the reform 

 desired. It should be plainly understood that there is no desire to displace or 

 supersede the fundamentals of a general education. Indeed, it is less a question 

 of the introduction of a new subject into the curriculum than the infusion of a 

 new spirit into the system. So long have we continued to run in the academic 

 groove that prim;iry education seems to have become a thing somewhat remote 

 from the lives of those receiving it ; and this want of relation is the raoi'e marked 

 in the case of rural schools. The lesson in geography too often deals with a 

 forei<^n country while the pupil remains igcorant of his immediate neighbourhood. 

 His early steps in art are dogged by the acanthus-lear — although in this matter 

 we are 'mending bomewhat— while his problems in arithmetic suggest a Stock 

 Exchange rather than the countryside. 



It may be adraitltd that the sole test of the fitness of any subject in the 

 curriculum is its value as an educational agent ; but it needs to be recognised 

 that the commonest things in one's everyday environment may be made to serve 

 an educational end. If every school in town and country possessed and utilised 

 freedom to make its surroundings a means of education the problem would be in 

 a fair way to solution. This, however, involves the introduction of the spirit to 

 which reference has been made, and this can only come through the teacher. The 

 problem then, as in so many cases, resolves itself into the question of the training 



