200 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 
The main movement of population within rural 
occupations themselves is the shifting from purely 
agricultural branches to the pastoral and dairying 
branches. Thus, whilst the numbers engaged in agri- 
culture fell during the period 1901-11 by more than 
25 per cent., the numbers employed in the pastoral 
industries more than doubled, while those in the dairy- 
ing industry nearly trebled. 
(c) Causes of the Relative Decrease in the Supply of 
Farm Labour.—The key to the retardation in the rate 
of growth of rural population and the acceleration in 
the expansion of numbers in urban areas is to be found 
in the relative attractiveness of town life compared with 
country life. This, obviously, is not the the result of a 
single cause, for of recent years many circumstances have 
combined to make this influence felt more keenly. 
In the first place, until quite recently, our education 
system has not been of such a nature as to interest 
children, even in the country, in the natural objects 
surrounding them. The whole trend of the system for 
at least the first decade of the present century was to 
isolate the child from his environment in the mad rush 
to obtain good results at the forthcoming examinations, 
based on a curriculum which prepared mainly for clerical 
pursuits. The Education Commission of 1912 found the 
outstanding weakness of the system to be ‘‘want of 
facilities for rural training,’’ and that ‘‘in respect of 
the great importance of agriculture to the Dominion, this 
subject is not receiving the attention it deserves.’’ 
Fortunately, this advantage is being remedied now 
by the growth of the idea that ‘‘instruction in the ele- 
mentary principles of agriculture that can be properly 
included in the programme of primary schools ought 
to be addressed less to the memory than to the intelligence 
of the child. It should be based on observation of the 
everyday facts of rural life, and on a system of simple 
