Nov. 1906.] 



401 



EDUCATION. 



POPULAR AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN JAMAICA. 

 The efforts made to improve agricultural education in Jamaica during the 

 last few years cover a good deal of ground. The first obvious requirement was a 

 suitable text-book, and in 1891 we succeeded in getting "Tropical Agriculture" 

 from Dr. Nicholls. After a while, also at the instance of our educational authorities, 

 the two " Tropical Readers " were compiled for use in the schools. In 1897 the 

 Principal of Jamaica College made a tour of the Agricultural Colleges in the United 

 States and Canada, and reported to us what other people were doing. Side by side 

 with this we made some attempt in the Codes of 1895 to secure practical agricultural 

 work in the schools by offering a special grant for properly cultivated school plots. 

 During the last few years there has been steadily increasing effort to promote 

 agricultural education both in the schools and outside of them, and the Imperial 

 Department of Agriculture has done much to assist us both by means of its officers 

 and by means of its publications, amongst which I am bound to mention with 

 special gratitude Dr. Watts' " Nature Teaching." 



Now, conspicuous amongst the lessons which lie on the surface of these our 

 efforts in Jamaica are two points : — (1) the importance of preparing the ground by 

 creating interest and sympathy in the work amongst the adult population, and 

 (2) the importance of doing all that can be done to equip the teachers for the new 

 requirements imposed upon them, before we expect practical results. Agricultural 

 teaching, like other teaching, must be judged by its fruits. Although improvement 

 in practical agriculture is only one of the fruits which we properly demand from 

 the schools, it is a very important result. 



Our attempt in 1895 to secure practical work in elementary schools was, to 

 all intents and purposes, a failure. The results, agriculturally, tended to bring 

 school agriculture into contempt ; educationally there was little to commend. 

 We had made the mistake of expecting seed time and harvest to proceed with 

 equal step. At the best it would have been a plan very slow in result to work 

 principally through the schools, for unless we induce improved cultivation among'st 

 the population immediately productive, we postpone to far into the future that 

 improvement, need for which in Jamaica was imperative and urgent, and constantly 

 becoming more urgent, as the old wasteful cultivation made suitable land scarcer, 

 an L as the pressure of outside competition tightened its grasp. Nor did our plan 

 promise sure, if slow, success, for in the absence of outside co-operation the school- 

 master's efforts evoked very little response. 



Further, the outside population was at first exceedingly apathetic and 

 indifferent, if not actively hostile. Parents objected to the soiling of the children's 

 clothes in practical work; objected to the teachers making money out of their 

 children's labour ; contended that book learning and nothing else was what they 

 had sent the children to school for, and that as a matter of fact they were in a 

 better position themselves to give the practical teaching which the teachers 

 professed. In the last contention there was often sober truth. The consequence 

 was that the schools attempted seriously to earn the special grant, and it was 

 often an amusing as well as a saddening spectacle to view the cultivation " where 

 but a few torn shrubs the place disclosed" which were the subject of claim for 

 special grants. 



It would have been strange if the attitude of the peasantry had been 

 different in this matter, and it was we Avho miscalculated. Emancipation was only 

 two generations behind. With us, as in the Southern States of America, it was 



