726 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
, I have already referred to the American elevator system as one 
of the growing needs of the colony. Our rivals for supremacy in the 
European markets have not been slow in utilising these modern 
conveniences for handling produce. The introduction of the system 
of grain elevators in India is the subject of two important Blue Books 
recently issued by the British Government. As far back as 1889 Lord 
Cross, the then Secretary of State for India, urged upon the Indian 
Government the great importance of this matter, intimating that the 
Government might properly assist the project thus proposed. In Russia 
the elevator system has become firmly established on the railway lines, 
centring at Odessa and Novo Rossiesk. Immense grain warehouses, 
having a capacity for 65,000 tons of grain, have there been built by a 
single railway company. So perfect is the system by which the grain 
of the Caucasus is handled that, at the port of Novo Rossiesk, a 
cargo of 2,000 tons of wheat may he shipped in twenty-four hours. 
We have only to consider the artificial burdens under which produc- 
tion in the Australian colonies staggers to understand why depression 
comes and so persistently stays with us, while good times seem 
always to be contingent upon the successful negotiation of a Govern- 
ment loan in the London market. 
Finally, this inquiry is directed to those influences which tend to 
correct the existing defects of our industrial system. Naturally our 
hopes for improvement are centred about the youth of the colony, 
with whom, in a general sense, the future of the country rests. 
Wisely, as most of us believe, the nation has undertaken the great 
work of educating our children, presumably because it is for the 
good of the State that it should do so. Does the existing educational 
system tend to strengthen our youth for the struggle for existence 
that will inevitably overtake them ? By its fruits it must be judged. 
With those gentlemen who plead so strenuously for education for its 
own sake, for “the development of mind rather than machinery of so 
much horse- power,” we have no contention. Here, as in the fable of 
the shield, the question has its two equal sides. Few will dispute the 
dictum of Mr. Gladstone that “ the man is greater than his works, 
and must not be bounded by them.” On the other hand, in the animal 
economy, the stomach is of greater importance than the brain. The 
poet and the philosopher, equally with the labourer, must have food 
and the ability to eat and digest it. The question, “ What shall we 
eat, and what" shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?” 
is a fundamental one ; and any scheme of education that fails to take 
this fact into account must be defective. The bulk of our school 
population, whatever their mental attainments may be, will in the near 
future be delvers in field and mine or workers in factories. So far as 
the mere elements of education are concerned, the three R’s are indis- 
pensable. The tools of knowledge— the ability to read, write, and 
compute— must be iusisted on for the good of both State and indi- 
vidual. But beyond this our educational efforts ought to be directed 
towards bracing up the youth for the industrial struggle for existence 
that lies before them. Dow educational methods fail in this are briefly 
stated in what follows : — 
(1.) The existing machinery of education utterly crushes the 
individualism of the pupil. The tastes or bias of the student, unless, 
happily for him, bis predilections run with the curriculum, are too 
