312 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
the schools and parents are ignorant of the efforts made in this direction on behalf of 
the youths of the country. 
The Committee have been impressed by the limited response that has been made 
during the last six or seven years to the many liberal offers of assistance, financial and 
social, for placing boys on the land overseas, and by the ignorance of the schools in 
regard to the wealth of opportunity that has been offered to the British boy during 
the last decade for overseas life. 
It is possible that parents have not realised the value of overseas enterprise for 
their sons, nor the immense importance it possesses for the future of the Empire 
generally. It seems from the evidence of many who have worked to induce boys of a 
suitable type to consider the possibilities of a career overseas that the chief obstacle 
to the migration of boys comes from the parents. Headmasters have written in the 
following strain : 
‘A general disinclination on the part of the parents and boys to face life overseas 
is due partly to the urban dweller’s lack of knowledge and appreciation of country 
life, and partly due to the prevalence of small families, the mother especially objecting 
to part with her only son.’ : 
‘In the majority of the cases, parents are not prepared to allow their children to 
emigrate before the age of 21, and they do not wish them to take up agriculture in 
England ; consequently, on leaving school, many who would besuitable for an overseas 
life take up other occupations in which they lose contact with and interest in agri- 
culture.’ 
‘Nowadays it is difficult to persuade boys and their parents that the hope of 
success is often in getting away from home.’ 
The Secretary of the Headmasters’ Employment Committee writes ‘that 
individual boys who are told of schemes under the Empire Settlement Act at our 
offices are generally unwilling to embark on a farming career in the Dominions.’ 
A Headmistress writes: ‘The chief difficulty is the parents. This opposition of 
parents is a vital difficulty, and unless it can be reduced, and parents’ confidence in 
the prospects and welfare of their sons and daughters established, there will be little 
improvement in the numbers going overseas.’ 
It is pleasing to note, however, that there are signs of an awakening among the 
general public, particularly the thinking parent, on the question of migration. The 
excellent supervision and after-care of the young migrant exercised by the various 
voluntary societies have undoubtedly helped to bring about this change of attitude. 
On the schools’ side individual headmasters have been sympathetic, in some cases 
enthusiastically so, in their desire to give their non-literary, non-mathematical pupils 
a training to fit them for an active outdoor life; but it must be stated that there are 
many who have been, and still are, wholly indifferent, if not definitely antagonistic, 
to the idea of any of their pupils being encouraged to consider the possibility of an 
overseas career. Enlightenmentis, however, gradually taking the place of ignorance. 
This is due in a large measure to the greater facilities for travel promoting more 
frequent visits, reunion of families, extended tours, interchange of teachers, and other 
opportunities for direct contact with countries overseas. 
A sound educational training for overseas will appeal more and more to the 
thinking public, who will demand in place of much that is purely academic in school 
curricula a greater provision of those studies and practices that make for handiness, 
alertness, and initiative, that promote skill of hand and eye with understanding, and 
establish a contact with nature and science. In some quarters there is a growing 
tendency to adapt the curriculum to an education at once more real and practical, 
and therefore more suited to life overseas, but the chief obstacle to any general con- 
cession in this respect is the examination spectre, hence there is as yet no wide- 
spread adoption of this policy. That a number of public school headmasters are 
taking the question of migration into serious consideration is a promising sign, and 
their recent action may encourage the rest of the secondary schools to follow in due 
course. 
The absence of full and reliable knowledge of conditions overseas is in all 
probability at the bottom of both parental and scholastic opposition. When even 
headmasters write: ‘Fuller information on the possibilities for boys to emigrate 
without capital would be most acceptable,’ ‘Should be glad to receive information 
regarding agencies and organisations that exist for assisting those who desire to go 
Co ee oe ee a 
