334 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



and girls well educated with an agricultural bias ; secondly, that the country has an 

 increasing need of finding healthy and profitable employment within the Empire for 

 a large number of her sons and daughters ; and thirdly, that practical studies of all 

 kinds, especially those related to agriculture, possess a training value far too little 

 realised by parents and by educational authorities. Though much of this practical 

 work may have a vocational outlook, it is much more than that : it gives vision and 

 reality to study, and creates a distinct interest, the underlying educational purpose 

 of which is to make use of a natural environment for intellectual development, and 

 for the growth of real appreciation of education. 



Accompanying this report are two schemes of work still in the experimental stage, 

 but embodying the ideas set forth in the reports already issued — one by Mr. W. G. 

 Olive, headmaster of the Dauntsey School, Wiltshire, the other by Mr. H. W. Cousins, 

 of the Brampton School, Cumberland ; the second is printed below. 



Brampton County Secondary School. 



In the Re-sort for 1924-25 the Science Syllabus of the above school is printed in 

 some detail. The purpose of this paper is to indicate briefly where ' rural bias ' is 

 applied to other subjects of the curriculum and the extent to which «o-called ' practical 

 subjects ' find a place in the time-table. 



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 com- 

 plete problem as it presents itself to one's mind. At the risk of being misunderstood, 

 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, &c. — 

 and ' outdoor ' work in geography, mathematics, science, history, &c., 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, &c. 



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 



