19-21.] 



Education of the Farm Worker. 



395 



It was considered that it was riot the duty of a secondary 

 school to give definite training in the technical and practical 

 processes of agricultural practice, and consequently, in adapt- 

 ing the school curriculum, only those parts of a physics 

 syllabus were retained that were essential to a boy's general 

 training, and had definite application to agriculture." 

 In general, that appears to nie to be an adequate expression 

 ■of what should be our aim. I suspect that the question of rural 

 l)ias " in elementary education is, or has been, lai'gely a bone 

 of contention between two Government Departments, and, in 

 any case, seeing that the Ministry of Agriculture is responsible 

 for all agricultural education other than in secondary or elemen- 

 tary schools, this Ministry should at least be very extensively 

 •consulted as to the latter, if anything like a carefully graduated 

 course of instruction is to be built up. 



There is one point at which one sees some possii)ility for action 

 — without undue expense ! Surely the text-books provided in 

 country schools, and the general outlines prepared for the courses 

 of instruction, could be devised with an eye to the children's 

 country surroundings. Certainly this would give meaning and 

 interest to much which must appear to ordinary children as 

 ingenious means for making them wretched when they are not 

 iillowed to play. And why must all the joy of life be crowded 

 out of school hours? Why is school not an integral and delight- 

 ful part of the child's life? There must be more opportunity 

 for the study of the great " out-of-doors." Education with 

 " rural bias " and much outside work appears, in spite of jere- 

 miads to the contrary, to be successful in the few secondary 

 schools where it is tried conscientiously and intelligently. Why 

 then are the experiments in this direction so limited? 



One must of course realise that the whole theory of teaching 

 in schools is being challenged and criticised. We must wait to 

 see the result of the thousand present discussions, for onlv a 

 wider experience in educational work would justify one who is 

 not an educational expert proceeding further. Yet I hope T 

 shall be understood,- in view of what has been said above, if I 

 venture the opinion that nowhere is there more room for a new 

 spirit and a new outlook in educational methods than in our rural 

 schools. 



What I have called social education concerns, for the present 

 at any rate, more immediately the adult workers in the agri- 

 cultural industry. By social education I mean the development 

 of thought concerning the history of the worker's class, his 



