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ON EDUCATIONAL TRAINING FOR OVERSEAS LIFE. 287 
mean that successful rural homes depend to a large extent upon the ability, training 
and managerial skill of the housewife. 
‘The essential characteristics of the British Columbia System of Agricultural 
Education are as follows :— 
1. Agricultural nature-studies are given some prominence in grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 
of the Elementary School Course (see official outline of studies). 
2. In grade 9(first-year High School), general science, although optional, is strongly 
recommended. 
3. A two-year course in agriculture is offered in grades 10 and 11, and is valid 
alike for junior matriculation or for entrance to Normal School. 
4. Agricultural instruction in B.C. High Schools is given by graduates of our 
Canadian Agricultural Colleges. Some of these instructors are also graduates in arts. 
Those who have had a professional training course in education are very much pre- 
ferred for this work, although such are not always available. 
5. Agriculture as a High School subject is optional with any other science or with 
a foreign language. All regular High School students must take at least one foreign 
language—either Latin or French. 
6. Girls may elect agriculture in grades 10 and 11, and take the same course with 
the boys. During the past year the major honours in agriculture, including the 
competitions in stock-judging, were won by girls. 
7. These High School courses in agriculture are now being given in twelve schools 
to approximately 500 boys and girls. Two of these schools are in cities (Victoria 
and New Westminster) ; the remaining ten are in rural towns or villages in the best 
agricultural and fruit-growing districts. 
8. The text-book method of instruction in agriculture, which has repeatedly 
been tried in years past in some parts of Canada and which has always failed and 
must always fail, has been ruled out in British Columbia. The principle of direct 
instruction and knowledge at first hand are followed throughout. Every High School 
offering courses in agriculture is equipped with a good working laboratory classroom 
where various lines of laboratory experiments and the direct examination of agricultural 
material can be carried on. This is supplemented by having agricultural experiment 
grounds or gardens convenient to the school where various aspects of gardening, 
field husbandry and horticulture are dealt with from year to year, the students them- 
selves with their instructor doing practically all the work. Class excursions to the 
best farms in the community in which the school is located, for the purpose of observing 
and discussing the methods followed in the various lines of farm practice, are frequently 
conducted. The individual students carry on a well-regulated scheme of home projects 
in agriculture having direct bearing upon the work taken up at school. In some 
instances the home projects are standardised and conducted under rules involving a 
competition in the production of garden or field crops or the raising of young animals 
or poultry. In such cases the home projects are made the basis of organisations now 
widely known as Boys’ and Girls’ Agricultural Clubs. In computing the standing 
of the students in agriculture at the end of the year, 50 per cent. is based upon a 
uniform provincial examination and 50 per cent. upon term work, the latter being 
determined by the instructor. 
9. Students who elect agriculture for junior matriculation or for the teachers’ 
High School Course and who afterwards complete the Normal Training Course are 
granted a special diploma in rural science or elementary agriculture. The agricultural 
Spe has obvious advantages for teachers who afterwards teach in rural or village 
schools. 
10. The organisation of the Agricultural Educational branch of the Department 
of Education includes at the present time a Director of Elementary Agricultural 
Edueation, who has general supervision of the work within the Province, and seven 
District Supervisors of Agricultural Instruction, whose duties generally are as follows: 
(a) The teaching of agriculture in the Public and High Schools of their respec- 
tive districts. 
(6) Exercising a general supervision over the teaching of nature study and 
elementary agriculture in those districts and helping the teachers to formu- 
late and carry out such courses of instruction in those subjects as are 
best suited to the districts. 
(c) Conducting High School Extension classes in agriculture during the winter 
Bey for the benefit of young men and women not attending High 
chool. 
