1921.] " Rural Bias " in Secondary Schools. 145 



led him to consider the question of establishing a training farm 

 within easy reach. A stone's throw of the school there was 

 a small holding of some twenty acres or so, derelict for many 

 years, the rich land gone to waste, the Little farmhouse boarded 

 lip (Fig. 1). It should be remembered that this w T as more 

 than twenty years ago when agriculture was at a very low 

 ebb and even those who farmed the rich Somersetshire land 

 were hard pressed to make a living. Mr. Smith was of 

 opinion that the possibilities of improvisation, if grasped by 

 boys and girls who have a natural instinct for land work, would 

 provide them with a key that would open many a door 

 through which, in normal times, only those could hope to 

 pass who are plentifully supplied with the world's goods. He 

 acquired the derelict holding, and being a skilled practical man 

 with quick eye and trained hand, he managed to convert 

 the farmhouse into a farm school (Fig. 2) at the trifling expense 

 of £150. Those who have any working acquaintance with 

 the present cost of adaptation will be astonished to realise 

 how much could be done with a very little so recently as twenty 

 years ago. The ground floor of the farm has been divided up 

 into a dairy, a cheese-making room, a cheese-store for ripening 

 and an incubator house. Beyond these there is a workshop, 

 a milking byre, a pigs' kitchen and a cider house. On the 

 upper floor there is a delightful little classroom with well- 

 equipped agricultural library, and there are other rooms for 

 the study of methods of fruit storage and for demonstrations in 

 seed ripening and apiary work. Beyond the farm there is one 

 outhouse that has been supplied with power for the economic 

 handling of every farm product and its adequate prepara- 

 tion as food for stock. The mixing floor is concreted and the 

 motor is driven by electricity supplied from Wedmore a mile 

 or so away. There is a cow house and an up-to-date poultry 

 station, and there are piggeries. 



A special and notable feature of this small farm is that the 

 actual work is not done by the pupils. Mr. Smith holds very 

 strong views on this matter, and is of opinion that it is not 

 right to ask any of his boys or girls to do work that should 

 command payment. Yet although the total grant in aid of 

 the farm school is limited to about 6200 a year — a Grant from 

 the Board of Education, the regular Grant to Secondary 

 Schools, and school fees — the farm maintains three men at 

 the standard wage and supplies the school, with its L50 pupils 

 ind resident staff of nearly a dozen people, with all the fruit, 

 vegetables, eggs, milk, butter and bacon consumed. P 



