280 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



' Conditions, 



' The pupils must be 14 years of age and show satisfactory evidence that they are 

 qualified to profit by the course of study in each school. Pupils are not resident at 

 the school, but boarded in the neighbourhood under careful supervision. Fees £8 to 

 £10 per annum. 



' Syllabus of Instruction. 



' The syllabus of instruction includes the ordinary school subjects to the extent 

 to which they are carried in the ordinary grammar school, although the contents of 

 the subjects are varied and one-third of the pupils' time is given to agriculture. 

 Sloyd, farm handicraft, and drawing are prominent in the curriculum. The science 

 subjects are chemistry, physical geography, and climatology ; the agricultural science 

 in the syllabus is elementary botany and zoology, and from my observation the 

 methods, which are chiefly experimental and with a strong agricultural basis, are 

 very efficient. The ''principles of agriculture" deal with soils, particularly Victorian • 

 soils, rotations and cultivation of crops, irrigation, feeding and general management 

 of farm livestock, ensilage, first-aid to animals, and the general principles to the 

 valuation of fertilisers, milk and cream, farm crops and animal products. 



' The farm attached to the school is worked in such a way as to illustrate the 

 principles laid down in each section of the syllabus ; it is used as a centre of experi- 

 mental work, and where it adjoins the school, as at Ballarat, the boys are constantly 

 at work on it. When it is at a distance, the pupils spend a certain number of hours 

 there each week and sleeping accommodation is provided, so that a limited number 

 may, in turn, see and take part in the whole round of the farm work. As none of 

 the farms are more than five years old, much of the preliminary work of building, 

 clearing, draining, road-making, etc., has been done by the pupils; and at Ballarat 

 the grounds surrounding the school have been laid out, planted, and kept in order 

 by them. The High Schools exhibit produce, experimental material, and students' 

 work at the show of the Royal Agricultural Society at Melbourne ; the competition is 

 very keen and, no doubt, is one of the factors in stimulating the remarkable interest 

 the boys take in the farm. 



' I have dwelt upon the agricultural side of the school, but it must be kept in mind 

 that most of the girls and some of the boys are hoping to be teachers, or to follow 

 pursuits other than agricultural, and their education is therefore on more general 

 lines, and includes languages, and, in the case of the girls, domestic economy. 

 Mr. Frank Tate, the Director of Education for Victoria and the chief promoter of 

 these schools, says that the reacting effect of the agricultural side upon the ordinary 

 traditional subjects is great and satisfactory, and, encouraged by these results, the 

 Department intends to develop High Schools with a commercial and an industrial 

 side on precisely similar lines. Certainly I have never seen more energy and interest 

 than was displayed by those boys and girls when observed at work. Mr. Tate says, 

 further, that the fault of the vocational school in the past has been to make it narrowly 

 technical — a pregnant opinion.' 



Queensland. 



The Under-Secretary to Department of Public Instruction, Queensland, reports 

 as follows : 



' Recognising the value and the necessity of vocational training during the latter 

 years of school life, the Department of Public Instruction (Queensland) has, during 

 recent years, amended the previously established courses of primary and secondary 

 instruction. Though there remains a direct line connecting Primary, Secondary, 

 and University activities, pupils may diverge at certain points to take up Work which 

 is preparatory to vocational employment. The points of divergence lie (o) at or just 

 before the completion of the Primary course, (6) half-way through, or (c) at the end 

 of the Secondary course. Generahsing, schools or classes giving instruction in com- 

 mercial subjects are provided in the larger commercial centres ; technical instruction 

 in towns where secondary industries are flourishing or expanding ; elementary 

 agricultural schools (called in Queensland " Rural " schools) at the centres of 

 important agricultural (including dairying) districts. In all these special schools the 

 general education of pupils absorbs the greater part of school hours, but vocational 

 subjects are substituted for the purely academic during the remainder. The under- 



