ON EDUCATIONAL TRAINING FOR OVERSEAS LIFE. 287 



Concerning the general work of the school, it only remains to say that it follows 

 that of any other secondary school earning grants from the Board of Education. 

 Religious knowledge, English language and literature, modern history, geography, 

 French, mathematics, music, drawing, housecraft (for girls) and manual itistruction 

 (for boys) all occupy the usual place in the curriculum. Latin is taught where 

 necessary, but to selected pupils only. 



It is important to emphasise at the outset that the raison d'etre governing all the 

 experiments at this school has been the wish to give children the best possible 

 training- — in every sense of the word — in a mixed school drawing its pupils from a 

 district almost purely agricultural, and compelled on the one hand to prepare some 

 pupils for the usual Lower and Higher School Certificates as a passport to the 

 Universities and the professions, and on the other for life on the land or for entry 

 to some trade or branch of business life. It has never been the purpose of the 

 Governors or staff to give definite agricultural teaching as a preparation for farming, 

 to the exclusion of the interests of the majority of the pupils. Such a policy would 

 have been fatal to the school, and no less injurious to the best interests of the future 

 farmer ; and that for two main reasons — the district is not sufficiently populous 

 to maintain a school with a purely ' farming ' type of curriculum, while the 

 segregation on vocational grounds of children of secondary school age is most 

 undesirable. 



It is impossible in a short report to discuss the pros and cons of such a wide and 

 deep subject as the curriculum of a school, or even to make a plain statement of the 

 complete problem as it presents itself to one's mind. At the risk of being misunder- 

 stood, the writer must therefore content himself with a very brief statement of the 

 essentials of a good curriculum as they appear to him. 



1. It should have a real relation to the child's life— past, present, and future — 

 otherwise it is almost impossible to secure the pupil's interest and co-operation, 

 without which good work is impossible. 



2. It should be broad enough to appeal to the many sides of the individual child 

 and to the varied tastes and inclinations found in an average form. To this end 

 practical work — such as woodwork, metalwork, domestic subjects, dairying, etc. — 

 and ' outdoor ' work in geography, mathematics, science, history, etc., must receive 

 proper recognition and an adequate allotment of time. 



3. It should be sufficiently elastic in content and method to extend the keen and 

 able student without unduly depressing the supposed dull and backward. 



4. It must give reasonable opportunities for training children to appreciate art, 

 music, etc. 



5. It must, above all, secure that a child leaves school with the wish to learn 

 by practice and through precept, and that he knows, when left to his own devices, 

 how to learn. 



Believing in these principles, the writer has continually urged members of his staff 

 to base their teaching as far as possible on the lessons afforded and suggested by the 

 school environment, and to endeavour to give full play to the individual leanings of 

 the children. 



That does not mean the outlook is to be parochial, but that the local interest 

 serves, not necessarily as a focus, but certainly to help to focus the world as a whole 

 and to bring the individual into right relations with the community. The study, 

 too, of the individual child, and the attempt to make the curriculum fit him, instead 

 of trying to fit him to the curriculum, gives every child the chance of proving that 

 he is good at something. This is most important. The traditional type of academic 

 curriculum so often only serves to suggest to a boy that in comparison with his 

 fellows he is a dunce. Surely there is something wrong with a system that allows 

 this ! And is it not true that the pupils who are thorns in the flesh of the form 

 master often prove in after life to be the very ' salt of the earth ' ? Among the men 

 who have built our Empire — the pioneers, administrators, business men, etc. — men 

 gifted with insight, initiative, organising capacity, etc., there are hundreds and 

 thousands to whom the book and pen made little appeal. 



If the school is to do its work thoroughly, it must recognise that the word ability 

 has a much wider meaning than is often granted to it ; and must make provision 

 for the practical type of boy no less than for the fellow who is destined to shine in 

 ' book ' work. 



The writer claims that for a country school a curriculum with a marked rural 



