SCOPE FOR WOMEN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 56, 14 March 1944, Page 3

SCOPE FOR WOMEN

WIDER FIELD NECESSARY

POST-AVAR NECESSiTY "Many young men and women wht, tiave seen service in this war, and have gone overseas, arc not going to settle down very easily. They liiave spread their wings, they have sill sorts of .ideas, and they may not xcadily go back to the long hours of a seven-day working Aveek on the farms. This problem cannot be .sidestepped, and its solution Avill require the co-operation of all the country women's organisations.'"

In these words the Principal of Massey Agricultural College (Professor G. S. Percn) addressed a conference of the Women's Division of the Farmers' Union, Wellington Central District, held at the College on Monday. He told the attendance, of over 100 that the College Board of Governors had : been considering post-war problems, one of which "was to make country life more attractive as a mode of living as Avell as a means of making a livelihood. The better the education and the higher the standard of living, the greater was the tendency for young people to leave the long 'hours, with their, accompaniment of some drudgery, in the country and to be falsely attracted by the. glitter of the towns. All such problems Avould have to be studied, not merely from the standpoint of agricultural sci-» ence, but also from the .socialogical angle. Much could be done, and was being done, by the agricultural college to make young people more Jiappj' and. contented on the farms. There were country homes where a small expenditure would make allj the difference between retaining young women on the land and their leaving for the towns. In striving to meet the unprecedented, demand from young women for horticultural and general farming courses at the College, the authorities were limited to the insufficient accommodation available, in spite of recent additions. The country avo-

men's organisations were working with the College authorities lor the revival of the hoincmakers' course which had been interrupted by the war, and before that was re-insti-tuted there would have to by much jiiore accommodation for women made available. It would be largely by the co-operation of the interested organisations that that problem could be. solved.