ON EDUCATIONAL TRAINING FOR OVERSEAS LIFE. 293 
ment of the countries to which they have gone, and their services to their fellows 
have often been far greater than those of the people who stayed at home. 
The Committee have endeavoured to ascertain how these conditions could be 
improved. They have given serious attention to the possibility of developing workshop 
practice and other manual work related to outdoor occupations as a part of the school 
curriculum so as to bring out and develop any natural bias young people have in these 
directions and make them more fitted for overseas life through an early training. 
The view has been strongly held and expressed that experience in practical things, and 
tuition with a more practical objective, will encourage and develop qualities which 
would otherwise remain latent in those very pupils most likely to emigrate. It has 
been with a desire to give such pupils a more equal chance of developing such natural 
bent towards practical things that the Committee have examined the whole question 
with the object of finding where the difficulties exist and how they may be over- 
come. 
The Committee have discussed in previous Reports the problem presented by these 
pupils, and the methods by which the difficulties have been satisfactorily overcome 
in a number of schools. They are here, in their final Report, concerned with the 
_ ways in which the teacher may further help the pupil who has taken advantage of 
the training facilities offered and has equipped himself so that he can take up life 
overseas. 
During the past year the Dominions most favoured by migrants from this country 
have been in financial difficulties, and in consequence they have relaxed their efforts 
to attract newcomers. The Committee find also a growing disinclination on the part 
of some of the people in this country to be attracted. These factors have introduced 
complications into their inquiries, but they firmly believe that the Dominions will 
speedily recover, and they hope that a more enlightened attitude will soon develop 
here. So they have continued their work in the expectation that the present troubles 
are but temporary. 
2. School Curricula.—The fact that one type of school curriculum does not suit 
all pupils is, of course, well recognised, as also is the further fact that many to 
whom it is unsuited deserve adequate attention on grounds of public interest, quite 
apart from any consideration of their own or their parents’ rights. Recognition of 
the facts, however, has frequently been insufficient to compel action; in many 
secondary schools the greater need has been conformity to certain examination 
standards, and the Committee early realised that the only chance of introducing any 
effective alternative curriculum was to induce examining bodies to accept alternative 
_ subjects.? Here again difficulties arose—teachers had all been trained to teach the 
_ accepted subjects, and these alone; any new subject would require new teachers, 
_ who could not readily be found, or it would need to be undertaken by existing teachers 
without adequate training, so that the subject might degenerate into the so-called 
“soft option.’ 
It was gratifying to find, however, that a number of secondary and public schools, 
recognising the intrinsic value of a curriculum which outsteps the limits of a scholastic 
career and serves to develop the sense of achievement in the normal child, had boldly 
given an important place to the more practical subjects, with entirely satisfactory 
results. Not only did benefit accrue to the pupils on whose special behalf the subjects 
had been introduced, but also to others for whom they were not strictly necessary. 
Fall details of the curricula of some of these schools are given in the earlier Reports, 
showing exactly how the time is allotted between the practical and the written work, 
and what appliances are needed in order to attain the best results. Evidence shows 
that the school curriculum can, in practice, be widened to fit the child for the life 
of action and achievement, and need not be restricted to the production of the scholar 
or the clerk. 
____ 3. Obstacles to Migration.—In the course of their earlier inquiries the Committee 
found that there isneed forsome definitely organised system of bringing to the notice of 
arents and pupils the openings for young people occurring in the Overseas Empire, 
_and for giving parents the information they need before deciding to what part of the 
mpire their sons and daughters might go. The national significance of this should 
© brought to the notice of education authorities and to schoolmasters and school- 
stresses in the hope that they will take steps to ensure that all their pupils have 
2 See Report for 1925, page 4. 
