AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTOR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1131, 19 May 1911, Page 8

AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTOR.

AN OTAGO PROPOSAL. (By Telegraph.-Prcss Association.! Dunedin, May 18. Mr. Bichardson, chief inspector to the Otago Education Board, presented to-day a report ou a proposal to appoint an agricultural instructor for the .Education district. He stated that the funds to pay the instructor could bo drawn from three sources-capitation fees, allocation from tho annual grant for the training of teachers, and donations from societies interested in agriculture with the Government subsidy thereon. Mr. Richardson estimated the income from the first two sources as <£3GO, out of which tho instructor's salary and travelling expenses, as well as rhe working expenses of classes, would have to bo met. Last year this latter item was «£9£ 12s. 2d.. and probably only ,£250 would be left for the former item, a sum for which it was hopeless to expect to get the services of a'competent man. • Unless the board received assistance from the societies interested in agriculture, or imposed a course of instruction on one or more of our district high schools, ho did not see how it would be possible to attempt more than is now being done in tho way of agricultural instruction. Mr. Eichardson suggested as an alternative the establishment in one of the farming centres of a purelv agricultural high school or college, open to boys who had won proficiency certificates. This would stand in the same relation to Lincoln College as tho high school stands to the University. Mr. Fleming strongly supported the proposal to appoint an agricultural instructor. He said eight or !cn A. and P. societies in the southern districts would contribute about .£GIV a year towards this, which, with the Government subsidy, would make .£460 per annum. Other education boards had initiated ngricultural instruction, and it was lu"h time Otago did the same. He moved that the report be received, and tliat (he scheme ]k> brought under the notice of the A. and P. societies with a request for their support. Mr. M'Kinlay, in seconding the motion, said ho hoped the board would not go in for an itinerant instructor. Both the Watißanui and South Canterbury Boards had confessed that in their experience this system was merely a makeshift. Ho hoped the hoard would step forward boldly, and go in for the most efficient system, viz., the establishment of an agricultural colkgo, Mr. Scott supported tho project of an agricultural college for Otago and Southland, which must come in time. II? sow no harm, however, in appointing an itinerant instructor as a stepping-stone to that project. The motion was carried, together with the adoption of the report.