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ON EDUCATIONAL TRAINING FOR OVERSEAS LIFE. 271 
Educational Training for Overseas Life.—Report of Commiitee 
appointed to consider the Educational Training of Boys and Girls in 
Secondary Schools for Overseas Life (Rev. Dr. H. B. Gray, Chairman ; 
Mr. C. E. Browne, Secretary; Major A. G. Cuurcu, Mr. T. S. 
Dymonp, Dr. Vargas Eyre, Mr. G. H. Garrap, Sir Ricnarp 
Grecory, Mr. O. H. Latter, Miss McLean, Miss Rita OLpHam, 
Mr. G. W. Onive, Sir Joun Russett, Rev. Canon H. Sewer, 
Mr. A. A. Somrrvinir, Mrs. Gorpon Witson). 
In 1923 a committee was appointed by the Association to consider the educational 
training of boys and girls in secondary schools for life overseas. A report on the 
result of an inquiry conducted by this committee was presented at the meeting 
last year in Toronto. It reviewed the provision made in secondary schools of England 
and Wales for developing a boy’s natural bias towards life on the land, or for giving 
girls some practical training in those modern operations which are associated with 
farm life; and, further, it dealt with the present state of public opinion on the subject 
from the point of view of the parent, the headmaster, the local educational authority, 
overseas settlement societies and educational authorities in the Dominions them- 
selves. 
(Copies of this report can be had from the Secretary, British Association, Burling- 
ton House, W.1, price 6d.) 
The committee summarised at the end of the report certain conclusions based 
on the information they had received. These conclusions are, for convenience, 
restated here :— 
1. A demand exists on the part of the Overseas Dowinions for boys of the right 
type with an agricultural bias, if not with training, and coincides with the home 
country’s need of finding healthy employment within the Empire for a large number 
of her sons. 
2. The public schools and other large secondary schools of Great Britain send into 
the world every year a considerable number of boys of the right type who love wide 
open spaces, and dislike intensely the over-crowded city life. 
3. There has been no serious attempt in the majority of schools to meet this 
demand. Schools hitherto have provided only three avenues—literary, mathematical, 
and scientific—in some places only two. While this is sufficient for many boys, it 
does not provide for the most practical type, so that numbers find no outlet for their 
natural ability in that spirit of enterprise and adventure which Dominion life offers. 
They lack necessary guidance and experience. 
4. The undoubted value of agriculture as an educational instrument has been 
overlooked in the past. Some British schools have made the experiment of adding 
this new method for educating boys of the latter type. A school farm or science farm 
has been set up in the working of which boys take an active part. This farm provides 
material for working in other subjects, such as mathematics and general science ; 
it encourages reading for a definite purpose, the observation of natural phenomena, 
the keeping of records, and adds considerably to the appreciation of geography. 
Thus the school farm, when properly used, is a valuable means of education and 
appeals to boys on whom the older classical and mathematical methods make no 
impression. 
5. Experience shows that the school curriculum exercises an important influence 
in deciding a boy’s career. The school farm would, therefore, bring to the notice of 
boys the possibilities of a career on the land. It would give them sufficient experience 
of what agriculture means, and so enable them to decide whether they are fitted or 
not for such a life. 
6. The extension of the experiment to other schools is not prevented by lack of 
land in many cases ; 50 per cent. of the schools have access to suitable land, but only 
9 per cent. use it. 
7. Development of a school curriculum in this practical direction for a section 
of a school needs encouragement because—(a) it is educational in a very wide sense ; 
(6) Empire considerations demand it ; (c) little is being done officially either by the 
Board of Education or by the majority of Local Education Authorities. 
