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" Rural Bias " in Secondary Schools. 



[May, 



The great difficulty that the school has had to face on its 

 farm side is the postponement of the operation of those 

 provisions of the Act of 1918 by which parents were compelled 

 to keep their children at school until the age of 16. The 

 training at Sexey's being thoroughly practical and modern, 

 attempts have been made by parents who are working farmers 

 to withdraw their boys and girls before they have completed 

 their course, because they find that after a couple of years or 

 less in the farm school they can replace a skilled man. 



Mr. Smith finds as a result of his long experience that in 

 addition to giving the main school ' ' rural bias ' ' the foundation 

 of the farm school serves to provide fitting occupation for those 

 boys and girls on whom a purely academic training would be 

 wasted, while affording opportunities to those who show a 

 special aptitude and wish to travel beyond the boundaries of 

 ordinary farm work to prepare for an agricultural college., 

 Pupils come from all parts — from local elementary and 

 private schools, from secondary schools, and in some cases 

 from the Continent. Perhaps because Mr. Smith is a very 

 keen botanist, botany is the foundation of much of the out- 

 door practical work of the farm school. In fact every pupil 

 has two years of botanical work, theoretical and practical, 

 before the farm school can be reached. 



Naturally all demonstrations are carried out on a small scale, 

 but it is abundantly clear that effectiveness is not a matter of 

 acreage. There is a quarter of an acre of garden land kept under 

 every variety of seasonal crop, so that the sequence of the 

 market-gardener's work can be followed. There are green- 

 houses ; there are cool and heated frames. In addition to delight- 

 ful orchards there is half an acre of fruit garden in which fruit 

 culture is taught in all its branches — grafting, budding, trans- 

 planting and the rest — while owing to the rich soil and the mild 

 climate, transplanting work is carried on under conditions that 

 must excite envy among those who have learned their orcharding 

 on colder and less grateful lands. 



The farm work itself embraces nearly all the problems that 

 agriculturists must consider. For example, to take mangold 

 cultivation, there is a plot some 110 yd. long and 11 yd. wide 

 divided into three strips. One is manured with superphosphate 

 at the rate of 4 cwt. per acre, sulphate of potash J cwt.. nitrate 

 of soda 1 cwt.. salt 3 cwt, On the next plot the rates are super- 

 phosphate 6 cwt.. sulphate of potash f cwt.. nitrate of soda 

 V, cwt. On the third the rates .are : superphosphate 8 cwt.. sul- 



