ON EDUCATIONAL TRAINING FOR OVERSEAS LIFE. 455 



blind-alley occupations, who abroad in a wider field would develop 

 splendidly. 



She would remind the meeting of the recommendation of the Royal 

 Commission to the British Government that there should be special 

 training for women to go overseas. She quoted Cecil Rhodes on South 

 Africa — ' It is British women I want to see ' — and asked how British 

 homes were going to be built up without British women. 



Members of the Headmistresses' Association had assured her that if 

 there were training schemes for women, young girls would be far more 

 ready to go. The kind of training that was wanted was such as would 

 fit the women for being good wives, mothers and keepers of the house. 

 Homes in this country would also benefit from such schools. 



She did not consider it necessary to start special institutions for the 

 purpose, but did ask that in the consideration of overseas settlements 

 the importance of encouraging women as well as men should be remem- 

 bered. 



Sir John Russell, F.R.S., said the Committee which reported to them 

 that day had set out to find some solution of the problem how to turn our 

 boys and girls into useful citizens of the overseas Dominions. The Com- 

 mittee began by inquiring into the most suitable training for those boys 

 and girls whose instincts were for the country and to whom the wide 

 spaces of the Empire appealed. Obviously the training should develop 

 habits of observation and give the background of general knowledge that 

 would enable them to get into the ways of the new country as easily as 

 possible and to derive the fullest value from the life they would lead there. 

 England, as we all knew, was a country for sane educational experiments, 

 and it was soon found that certain schools had not only successfully 

 visualised the general problem but had made much progress with working 

 out the practical details. The basis was the school garden, round whicli 

 much of the school work centred. There had been in recent years a 

 surprising development of these gardens, and they had been brought 

 more and more into prominence in the school curriculum. They were 

 used not merely for technical instruction in the arts of gardening, but for 

 the much wider purpose of training the intelligence of the child anrl 

 developing powers of seeing and doing things for himself ; they were in 

 the best schools becoming a highly effective educational apparatus. 



Those of them who had to do with the farmers of England knew how 

 alert and intelligent the present generation of men were. It was wholly 

 wrong to describe them as being unable or unwilling to learn. There was 

 a greater demand from farmers for lectures, demonstrations and other 

 forms of instruction than ever before. Twenty-five years ago it was often 

 difficult to obtain an audience or to arouse much interest or discussion. 

 It was not that the farmers lacked intelligence, but they had little faith 

 in education as it was then practised in many schools. 



To-day it is no uncommon experience for a lecturer to find that the 

 largest hall in the town has been taken ; that it is filled with farmers, 

 many of them young men, and that the lecture is heard with intelligent 

 appreciation and well discussed afterwards. An important modern move- 

 ment is on foot, especially in Wiltshire, Devon, Warwickshire and other 

 counties, in the shape of Agricultural Discussion Societies which are attended 



