ON EDUCATIONAL TRAINING FOR OVERSEAS LIFE. 273 
The opinion held in the Overseas Dominions on the subject of agricultural studies 
in schools is in complete accord with these views. The following abstract is made 
from a memorandum to the Superintendent of Education for British Columbia from 
the Director of Elementary Agricultural Education for British Columbia :— 
‘The study of agriculture is regarded as a valuable and almost essential part 
of a good, liberal education. Its interests are healthful, and its influence positive and 
beneficial. It calls out personal initiative and helps to develop self-reliance and 
resourcefulness. It gives new interests and new meaning to other science studies by 
affording innumerable examples of science applied. It affords one of the best avenues 
through which to approach the great biological secrets and mysteries of plant and 
animal propagation, and the laws of heredity. It develops certain skills incidental 
to scientific experimentation and to approved practices in farming and gardening. 
In all these aspects it is essentially and primarily educational and suitable alike to 
girls and boys, regardless of the particular vocation which each may ultimately choose. 
On the other hand, it may be of great value in setting up new standards, and new 
conceptions of the true nature and meaning of agriculture in the mind of these young 
people as a result of which they may be drawn to choose farming as an occupation. 
When such an educational and scientific basis has been laid for the farmer of the future 
the quality of our rural citizenship will advance, and not till then.’ 
Mr. Frank Tate, Director of Education for Victoria, Australia, states that certain 
secondary schools have a special agricultural course :— 
“In these schools the boys carry on many of the farm operations but only to a 
small extent. It is mainly for educational purposes and not as a sufficient training 
in the actual handiwork. Undoubtedly this work has greatly improved the boys’ 
attitude to the general work of the school, it has been an influence for good in their 
character, and has materially affected for good their after-school life. The reacting 
effect of the agricultural side upon the ordinary traditional subjects is great and 
satisfactory. Certainly I have never seen more energy and interest than was displayed 
by those boys and girls when observed at work. 
‘In my opinion the courses of training in agriculture and in domestic arts have 
proved to be educational to a high degree.’ 
The same ideas and principles are emphasised by the Superintendent of Secondary 
Education of South Australia (page 24), by the Under-Secretary to Department 
of Public Instruction, Brisbane, Queensland (page 23), and by the Director of Educa- 
tion for Saskatchewan (page 18). 
II. PRACTICAL WORK ON THE LAND. 
‘Practical work on the land is as necessary to any course of agricultural studies 
as practical work in the laboratory is to chemistry. It is necessary to emphasise 
this point, as there are signs in some quarters that agriculture may be adopted as a 
subject for the First School Certificate Examination, thus treating it as an entirely 
indoor study. Agriculture without practical work out-of-doors loses most of its 
educational value as a subject in the school curriculum. It is the contact with things, 
the study of things, not words, that in this case counts forso much. The opportunity 
afforded by a school farm or garden for bringing most of the science work into close 
oP with reality is extraordinarily useful. Such work gives purpose and 
es 
(1) To the study of botany through the types of plants used for food or that 
occur as weeds ; 
(2) To the study of insect life—useful and injurious organisms that play such 
an important part in the cropping of the land ; 
(3) To the study of elementary physics and chemistry. 
School gardens can supply much of the material required in the early stages, but the 
principle of giving to older boys, say from 15 years upwards, the opportunity of study- 
ing animal life, and land cultivation on the larger scale afforded by farm conditions, 
has many claims for serious consideration. The development of the curriculum in a 
practical direction for at least a section of a school needs encouragement because 
(a) It is educational in a very wide sense, 
(6) Empire considerations demand it. 
Overseas opinion on the subject of practical work is much better informed and more 
advanced than in England, with the consequence that in the Overseas Dominions a 
considerable body of experience has been accumulated, which has led the way to 
1925 i 
