1906.] 



Agricultural Education in Canada. 



33 



lege is an institute founded by Sir William C. Macdonald at a 

 cost of nearly $200,000 for the training of young women in 

 household science, for the training of teachers for Canadian 

 schools in Nature study work in connection with school gardens, 

 and for the preparation of teachers in manual training. They 

 have garden plots and opportunities for practising teaching at 

 the adjoining Consolidated Rural School, to which I will refer 

 later. Their training is just as practical as that of the Ontario 

 ^Agricultural College. They are given that instruction which 

 will enable them to interest rural children in Nature. Sir 

 William Macdonald's object is to make agriculture the most 

 worthy and dignified, as it certain!}- is the oldest and most 

 important, of all industries. 



I may mention one plan adopted at the institute as an 

 instance of the original and practical character of the education 

 given. After the pupils have gone through their regular in- 

 struction in the long courses in the cooker}- classes, each one in 

 turn is put in sole charge for one whole week of the kitchen 

 attached to the suite of rooms occupied by the lad}- principal. 

 The student is introduced to a kitchen empt}- of ever}-thing but 

 its bright and beautifully clean utensils. She is expected to 

 bu}- everything herself from the town shops, and cook everything 

 herself without assistance, for the lad}- principal and two friends. 

 She is also expected to pa}- the bills herself out of mone}' pro- 

 vided b}- the college, and to leave the kitchen at the end of her 

 week as bare and clean as she found it on entering. I was 

 informed that the practical results of this teaching were of the 

 highest value, each of the pupils straining every nerve to provide 

 the lad}- principal with a good table at the lowest cost possible. 



Consolidated Rural School. — In the grounds of the college 

 there is also a Consolidated Rural School, built b}^ Sir William 

 Macdonald. This Consolidated School serves the requirements 

 of five elementar}-' school areas within a radius of five or six 

 miles. Hitherto at each of these small schools a single teacher 

 had to stretch his or her unaided fingers over a human octave 

 running; from fi\-e to thirteen \-ears of ac^e and more. 



Sir William Macdonald, realising that much improvement and 

 advancement might be made in education for rural communities, 

 has provided at his own expense (in each of four Provinces), as 



D 



