358 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



cial support to classes which would rightly be considered too small in towns. 

 Conferences with parents and employers are even more necessary in. the country 

 than in the town. 



(3) Dark roads and lanes. — Throughout the year in the townfi, and during the 

 summer time in the country, it is not unlikely that the period 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. 

 or 6.30 P.M. will be the most valuable. But in country districts young persons 

 should not travel in the dark more than can be avoided. Schools should be as 

 near their homes as possible, even though this will involve modest housing and 

 equipment, with teachers to a certain extent peripatetic. It would be wasteful 

 to arrange for less than a full day of seven or eight hours. This should include 

 a recreative period. 



(4) Lack of rural employment.— Ada^iting the maxim of Pestalozzi, -we must 

 ' study the young person.' The adolescent is looking forward to the occupations 

 of manhood and womanhood, and on purely educational grourwls part of the 

 instruction should be vocational in a broad way. But the majority of the young 

 persons will find employment not in the country but in the towns, and they 

 know it. Those already employed in the towns may find their continuation 

 school near their work rather than near their home, and thus further reduce 

 the numbers of the village continuation school. It would be well if the lads 

 attended a voluntary evening class in the village. The girls will presumably be 

 housed by their town employers, and the uiban continuation schools will provide 

 for them. 



(5) Staffing. — There should be a staff of full-time teachers (of whom many 

 must be cyclists, in some districts motor-cyclists), and the services of social 

 workers in the neighbourhood should be invited. To recruit teachers, one must 

 be able to say with some precision when posts will be open, what are the total 

 hours of work and how they are distributed, the pay and conditions of service. 

 It is much more difficult to answer the questions in the case of rural work, but 

 they must be answered before men and women will come forward to be trained. 



Various possibilities. — Relations with village clubs and institutes should be 

 close ; a playing-field and meeting-hall used in common may prove durable links. 

 A good site of five or six acres should be acquired (a larger site would be better) 

 for recreation ground end buildings, the site being regarded as permanent, the 

 building's should nevertheless be temporary or semi-permanent. Part of the 

 buildings may be reserved for educational, part for recreative purposes, and 

 part may serve both purposes. One of the recreation rooms may be reserved 

 for each sex. Local considerations will determine whether school one day per 

 week for forty weeks or a seasonal arrangement of attendance is preferable. 

 In the latter case the farmers must be prepared to pay wages during the school 

 sessions. Periods intermediate between one day per week for forty weeks and 

 full time for eight weeks are, of course, possible. If there are three terms in 

 a year in the elementary school there will be six batches of fresh entries in the 

 two years of the present compulsory continuation course. Syllabuses of instruc- 

 tion may be in some subjects cyclic rather than consecutive, so that entrants 

 may begin a branch of a subject in the same class with those who have been 

 from one to five terms in the school. It is hoped that careful consideration will 

 be given to the possibilities of seasonal boarding-school arrangements, which would 

 meet the difficulties of thinly populated areas, while possessing such high educa- 

 tional advantages as to compensate the large initial outlay involved. There is 

 need for much thought, experiment, and pooling of experience, and as a contribu- 

 tion which may be helpful I submit a report on the Toy's Hill Residential 

 Farm School held during the first four weeks of 1914. 



The Toy's Hill Experiment. — The course was voluntary, vocational, and no 

 grant was received from the Board of Education. Twenty boys attended. 

 Expenditure, 187/. lis. 9f/. ; receipts : fees, 30/. ; other receipts, 21. 9s. 6d. 

 During the succeeding five years there has been evidence of the benefits derived 

 from the course, that of farmer-employers being very favourable. In any course 

 now proposed the duration would be eight or nine weeks, and a considerable 

 amount of non-vocational instruction would be given. 



