526 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dec., 1901. 
AGRICULTURE AT THE PRIMARY SCHOOL. 
Mr. H. R. Julien, agricultural engineer, writes as follows on this subject 
in the Revue Générale Agronomique of February, 1901. The subject being of 
special interest to an agricultural and pastoral community such as ours in 
Gusset we give our readers a translation of the article :-— 
AGRICULTURAL InsrRucTIoN IN Primary Scuoors.—THE PROFESSION OF 
THE AGRICULTURIST SHOULD BE Higuny Estremep.—WHat sHOULD 
BE Learnt P—OccastonaL and Reguiar Instrucrron.—Concuusion. 
The principal object of instruction in agriculture in the primary schools 
should be to cause agriculture to be understood, honoured, and loved as it 
deserves to be ; to elevate the profession in the eyes of the pupils as much as 
possible ; to develop a taste in young people for the profession of the farmer, 
which is unjustly despised and treated with contempt in certain parts of the 
country. If farmers are exposed to many reverses, resulting from epidemic 
diseases, from accidents, from failure of crops ; if, during certain seasons of the | 
year, they have to do heavy, prolonged, and laborious work, it is none the less 
true that those who devote themselves to an intelligent cultivation of the soil 
find in their labour a satisfaction and pleasure which, other things being equal, 
one would look for in vain in most of the other professions. 
Children in rural districts should learn at their school—when they have 
finished their term of study, they should be profoundly convinced that the 
farmer carries on an honourable and independent business; that agriculture is 
the most important of all national industries ; that it is an inexhaustible source 
of wealth, for it alone produces, whilst other trades confine themselves to 
transforming the products of the soil and the materials elaborated by plants 
under the influence of the sun’srays. . . . . 
To reach with certainty this highly desirable result, the germ of it must be 
implanted in the mind of the young pupil by giving him correct ideas of the 
conditions under which the agricultural industry must be carried on at the 
present day. 
There is no one so well able to work upon the intelligence, the tendencies, 
and the tastes of children as the capable instructor who is imbued with a deep 
sense of the noble mission confided to him. 
To cause agriculture to be esteemed and loved by children, they must be 
shown how estimable and worthy of their love it is. The profession of the 
farmer does not solely consist, as some even yet believe, in a routine or in 
machine-like work which the first-comer can rapidly acquire without any effort 
by personal experience or by observing how things are done in his neighbour- 
hood. On the contrary, it is a science which must be carried on by intelligent 
people, who know how to get at the why and the wherefore of the operations as 
numerous as they are varied which they undertake. 
lt is not, therefore, sufficient to bring under their notice but to make 
them see and understand the different kinds of work done in the fields, the 
orchards, and the farms. It is the most suitable means of making them acquire 
a reasoning knowledge, a knowledge of daily application concerning the culti- 
vation of various plants, the study of domestic animals, of parasites, of the 
nature of arable soils, of the value and action of manures, of the multifarious 
labours of the farm. 
It is not necessary to learn everything at the primary school, and no 
sensible person would pretend to educate the pupils there to become finished 
farmers. But what may be demanded of them is that at the end of their school 
life they should possess sufficient knowledge to continue to instruct themselves 
by the observation and interpretation of such phenomena as frequently present. 
themselves when reading the daily papers, reviews, and agricultural works, by 
the assistance everywhere given at agricultural conferences by State experts in 
agriculture, by the dairy experts, by the professors of courses of agriculture for 
adults, professors of horticulture, of market gardening, of apiculture, &c. 
