Nov. 1906. ]■ 



403 



^Education. 



in the Institution (with opportunities for instruction at the same time) until they 

 prove themselves fit for admission as regular students. It is easy to see what 

 excellent results in semi-industrial training in home work are thus afforded to these 

 future female teachers. 



Besides, opportunity has been given the last few years to the teachers actu- 

 ally employed in the schools, who had no such opportunities during their training- 

 sixty to eighty of them at a time— to get a few weeks' special agricultural instruction 

 at the Mico Training College in vacation time, when the educational plant is lying idle. 

 Part of this instruction is also practical, and in the evenings they get help in learning 

 drawing and such other manual work as is required of them in the schools. While 

 this does not aim at being exhaustive, it is of great assistance in starting the work 

 on right educational lines — a point of the greatest importance. 



In these ways we may reckon that nearly one-half of the principal teachers 

 now at work in our elementary schools have received some special training in the 

 teaching and work of agriculture. The number of schools applying for permission 

 to undertake practical work is rapidly increasing. The number of teachers who 

 apply for places in the special agricultural course is always much larger than can be 

 accommodated ; the difficulty is to find instructors for them while the ordinary 

 college staff should have its holiday. I need not say that the help afforded us by the 

 Imperial Department in supplying the services of an agricultural lecturer, Mr. 

 Teversham, has been invaluable in this work. 



THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In the second place, the operations of our Agricultural Society must be very 

 largely credited with the improvement in popular agricultural education. Much of 

 its effort inevitably takes the form of preaching, and the preaching of agriculture is 

 subject to the same disappointments as that of higher subjects; the proportion of 

 result to effort is mostly small. We have to be comforted with the reflection that 

 even the small result is needed, and no other way appears of obtaining it. Last year 

 there were forty-one local branches of the Society scattered all over the Island with 

 a total membership of 2,563. It has retained the sympathy and co-operation of the 

 employer classes who make up its Board of Management, and many of them actively 

 assist and guide the local Societies in their neighbourhood. The hearty co-operation 

 of the ministers of religion has also been of great help in enlisting the confidence of 

 the people. A nominal subscription of Is. per annum secures membership in a local 

 branch, and although these branches are as independent as they like, they get 

 advice and help of all kinds from the Secretary and the Committee of the Central 

 Board, which also circulates information amongst them by means of leaflets on 

 matters which need to be brought before them from time to time. They pay only 

 an annual 5s. affiliation fee to the Central Society, and as their small funds 

 accumulate they buy tools for common use, or seeds or plants for distribution among 

 members, or buy well-bred animals to improve the local small stock— pigs and 

 poultry. One Society has provided itself with a stud ass, and several of them have 

 been enterprising and capable enough to carry through successful Agricultural 

 Shows. It may be that the establishment of the Agricultural Society will prove to 

 be one of the biggest events in Sir Henry Blake's administration. It shows the 

 beginnings of co-operation amongst people whose inability to co-operate and 

 lack of public spirit have been amongst their most discouraging characteristics. The 

 service, social and political, which they render in affording opportunity to repre- 

 sentatives of every class in a District, to meet and talk over matters of common 

 interest, and to get to know each other, is exceedi ngly valuable. Not a little of the 

 improved popular attitude to agriculture is due to" these Societies. 



