454 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



not create a favourable impression. Even the really good type of boy 

 earned rather a bad reputation because of his un-handiness in doing any 

 of the one hundred odd jobs that occurred in up-country life, and therefore 

 was regarded as rather a fool. Why was this ? It arose because most of 

 our boys and girls were brought up in a very complicated organisation 

 that led them not to do things for themselves, but confronted them every- 

 where with orders ' to keep off the grass.' They did not fend for them- 

 selves ; and in every stage of life had things done for them. Our whole 

 scheme of education, whether in our high or elementary schools, was so 

 designed to train the mind that it overlooked the importance of handiness. 

 Training for agriculture itself, as Mr. Ormsby-Gore had already pointed 

 out, was different here. Our technique here was very different from the 

 technique overseas ; it was a very advanced technique, involving a more 

 elaborate form of cultivation which was not wanted in the simplified 

 crop-growing systems of our overseas Dominions. The final training should 

 be given in the country itself. His advice was to send the boy for a 

 year to one of the agricultural colleges in England and give him a scientific 

 grounding, which he would get better there than anywhere else. Then 

 let him go on a farm for a summer to learn to handle horses and stock, 

 and then let him finish his college course in the chosen Dominion. That 

 would be his best introduction to the agricultural life of the new country. 

 It did not follow that in order to secure this handiness the young 

 intending emigrant should go through the elaborate training of an 

 agricultural labourer, but it was essential that he should obtain a short 

 practical course which would teach him how to handle a horse, take it 

 out of its stable and harness it in a reasonably workmanlike way, as well 

 as to hitch it in a wagon and drive it out of the yard without bumping 

 into a post. Knowledge of such matters, as well as the knowledge of 

 how to handle stock, round up a herd of cattle and move them along, and 

 things of that kind, would make all the difference between a boy whom 

 the Colonial farmer wanted and one who would be regarded as a fool. 

 He ought also to have a little knowledge of tools, rough woodwork, be 

 able to make a gate or put up a fence, and to do estate carpentry of that 

 kind. Given some fundamental scientific education, together with that 

 handiness to which he had referred, there was an abundance of young 

 men and boys in England for whom could be found a useful and 

 prosperous career in our Dominions and in our Colonies. 



Miss Gladys Pott said she was going to plead with those who were 

 responsible for putting overseas educational settlement problems before 

 the authorities in this country, to consider the importance of emigration 

 of the sexes in equal numbers, a point which the report in 1917 of the 

 Dominions Society had strongly emphasised. It was a great mistake 

 that there had never been proper equalisation of the sexes in settlements 

 overseas, a condition which was essential to the character of the 

 Empire. 



Schemes for emigration of public school boys lost much of their value 

 without the necessary complement of girls of the same class. She would 

 appeal to educationalists to formulate some scheme to attract young 

 women overseas, especially in view of the surplus female population in 

 the Home Country, where even well-educated girls were drifting into 



