MAKING FARMERS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2387, 17 February 1915, Page 3

MAKING FARMERS

WHAT WANGANUI IS DOING

A PROGRESSIVE DISTRICT LADS AND PARENTS KEEN TO LEARN (By Fred. Pirani, Chairman of the Wanganui Education Board.) The leading article in your Monday's issue tempts mo to endeavour to'give vour readers an idea of tlio vocational instruction being carried out by the Wanganui Education Board in the district, which comprises part of the Tarauaki and tho Wellington Provincial districts, aud to controvert the idea apparently possessed by the writer that the work is in an initiatory or experimental stage. It is more than four years since ..the greatest and most successful developments took place, but it is some twelve years since. tho initio tory steps were' taken, and after -that the right way out was discovered by failure after failure, and for wbich not a penny of the Government money was utilised. And here let me digress or a moment to thank you for the deserved compliment paid to tho memory of the late G. D. Braik by you, and to make an emphatic protest against those responsible for the unjustifiable omission of his name from tie list of inspectors classified "as at January 1; 1915," although he did not die until January 20, thereby depriving his widow of any claim to a well-deserved compassionate allowance. True, he bad passed away when the list was issued, but a note to that effect could well have been attached. The name of Mr. H. Hill could just as well have been omitted, for he is above the age (65) allowable) for Civil Service appointments. While giving Mr. Braik every credit for tho wonderful work he accomplished for vocational education—arid particularly that portion relating to the land—lie himself would have been the last man to claim anything like tho whole of the credit for tho work already acconjplished, and which has won for tho district the praise of all authorities who have studied our system, and know something of the wonderful results accomplished at such little cost. "Die co-operation of the business and farming community, the wonderful generosity ol men like Sir J. G. Wilson, Mr. E. Short, fche-late Mr. F. Y. .Lethb'ridge, and Mr. E. Henson, and .many otliers, the system of governmental control/'the capability and, enthusiasm of the instructors, the help of : members of the Education Board, and the co-operation of many of the teachers, have all been large factors in the general success attained. Only those who. have been- through it all have the remotest idea of the difficulties encountered in thoearly stages of tho work—how a promising method of enlisting the sympathy of the farmers failed, only to be cast aside for something likely to be more successful; bow the great results of a system adopted one season proved an unmitigated failure the next, and how ono had to build afresh on the . ruins of the past over and over again, until at least somej thing like a system was evolved warI ranted to stand the severest [ tests. . AH this time the Government were lavishing money on leaflets, experimental plots, State ! farms, an expensive department, and goodness knows what else—while Lincoln College was turning out its learned pupils—but with' all this cry there was very little wool—for its influence on tho agricultural community was so small as to be hardly discernible. So our little failures, after comparison with the outcome of, these costly schemes, only spurred us to greater effort, and while the lamentable death of our Director of Education is an irreparable loss, there is a great consolation in the fact that ho left his work—in scientific agricultural educationa, particularly—at such a stage that ■ careful administration only is required for a,development that I am certain will exceed the most sanguine anticipations.

Work !n ISO Schools. The scope of the work may be judged by the fact that at 160 schools agriculture is taught by means of school gardens and scientific experiments, the latter with t'he simplest apparatus, such as bottles and jam tins; at eight district high schools and one day technical school, courses in scientific agriculture are taken; school camps are held at ■Mr. E. Short's pedigree stock farm, Feilding, Mr. Henson's;farm (shearing, wool-classing, and fencing), Waitohi, and the State Farm, Moumonaka; school farms'of five acres each are utilised one day' a week, at Marton and Feilding, and pruning and spraying of orchards at farms throughout the district. Besides grassing and manuring ' experiments at the schools, numbers of farms in the Taranaki end of the district are placed in our instructor's hands to. prescribe the steps to be taken to improve the pastures, the best method of rotating the grazing, shutting up the paddocks, planting .of lucerne, etc. And it can easily be proved that these farms' graze at least double the number of stock now to what used to be possible, and yet the pastures are in better heart than ever. In the schools the pupils taking the agricultural course, spend a portion of. the time in the laboratory, -where thoy aro taught to analyse soil and fertilisers, and a number of other experiments specially directed to increase their knownedge in relation to the productiveness of farm lands.. Let mo first outline the system of control under which our technical instruction has developed so fully. The education district is divided into three wards for this purpose. The officer in charge of the whole district is superintendent of Technical Education, in each ward there is a supervisor of teckncial instruction, and at each technical school there is,a director. Three members of the Education Board and the chairman are the Technical Committee; in each ward there is a central technical committee; and at each school there is a Technical Committee. The election of committees is held annually, and the superintendent attends at each annual meeting. There are some twelve technical schools in the district, with a large technical college, with about 180 day students and 500 night students. Excluding Palmerston, which' is not under the. control of the board, we have about 2500 technical students in the district. ' .

The Lack of Funds. The first' difficulty was the provision of funds, for the Government only pays capitation on tho average attendance of students, and makes no allowance for incidental expenses or upkeep of technical schools while only half-work fares are paid for itinerant instructors — a serious handicap in a district like ours, where so much road travelling has to be done. , A systematic canvass has resulted in this district ranking first in New Zealand for the amount of voluntary contributions and fees received n aid of technical education. Every local body farmers' union ; and agricultural association contributes sums varying from £50 downwards to the funds, and numbers of private individuals givo very liberal assistance. In this respect the methods of the Education Department are a great source of annoyance. Every contribution is looked upon with suspicion, and its bona fides have to bo proved. In one case 14s. 2d. was disallowed because it was held to bo bath fees, and not a donation, while two members of the board, who were extravagant enough to give £10 each to .the Patea Technical School had the sub.

sidy held up until it was proved that the donations wore not fraudulent. When one remembers that the principal of the Waitaki High School annually gave his salary of £500 (which was obtained from Government funds) back to tho board to get the subsidy upon, and chat the Department unblushingly winked at the practice, it is naturally conjectured that tho gander got most of the sauce. But we have now fairly well overcome the nionoy difficulty, and tlioro would be no trouble at all if tho Education Department would only pay over the capitation promptly, or would devise sonio better system of payment than this hand-to-mouth method.

The next problem is to establish classes. In tho large centres, unfortunately, the attendance is greatly interfered with by tho Territorial drills, and the picture shows, and continued work and attention is required to maintain a good average. In the smaller places the weather and distances are a great handicap; The system adopted in establishing classes is to hold a public meeting, at which tho chairman of tho board and a'director or other official explain the advantages aud requirements of the classes and enrol members. When it is found what demand there is, instructors are arranged for. and the classes commenced.

When the board first decided to carry out agricultural instruction methodically—some nine years ago—Mr. James Grant was appointed to take charge of it and school garden work. At the same meeting Mr. G. D. Braik was appointed chief .inspector—a happy combination. In conjunction with his school-garden work, Mr. Graut instituted evening classes for' farmers, but these did not prove a great success, and wore eventually abandoned, and it was afterwards discovered that farmers were most enthusiastic about instruction, which showed an almost immediate financial return for the time utilised. The school-garden movement, however, prospered amazingly. A large number of. teachers entered-into the work enthusiastically, and as their tastes were not "cribbed, cabined, and confined," but free vent allowed to their own ideas, tho influence of the work' on . the pupils was soon apparent, and one can be sure of good educational work inside a school where there is a school garden. I should dearly like your readers to inspect some of .our gardens at small schools, say, Apiti, Rangiwahia, Mokoia, or Tokaora. Allied with the garden outside was instruction inside —Nature study, simple experiments, lessons on ele.mentary agriculture, etc.

Creat Results in High Schools, Then Mr. Braik conceived the idea of ail agricultural course for pupils in ! the seoondary departments of the District High Schools, and evolved' the plan .which has produced such great'results'in this district. .Some little time afterwards, the Education Department gave an increased capitation grant for this course, and enabled >the board to appoint three itinerant instructors —Mr. 0. A. Banner, from the Hawkcsbury Agricultural College, for the southern ward; Mr. J. Grant/ for the central ward; and Mr. R. Browne for the northern ward. These men have all proved eminently satisfactory at.their work, and have always been in hearty accord with, the superintendent. They have charge of the school gardens, they supervise the agricultural instruction given in the primary schools, and they teach the students in the secondary departments of the district high schools, as well as holding adult classes in the. evenings. They have had far too much to do, necessitated by the meagreness of the Government capitation and the necessity for making both ends meet. I intend to bring a scheme before the Technical Committee for the employment of assistant instructors, which will : extend' the sphere of work and relievo the men who have been putting in as much as' twelve hours' work a day. The pupils taking the agricultural course- are, given:the best, facilities in existence in Australasia for acquiring the necessary knowledge outside the agricultural colleges, and on a recent visit to New South Wales one of cur experts was amassed to find that in primary an<L secondary work their agricultural education was not a circumstance : compared to ours." We have about 170 boys in our secondary agricultural course, and they have the usual work of English, arithmetic, geography, chemistry, etc., inside the school. One day a week they spend on a school faun doing the real thing—not an imitation. They Plough and'harrow with horses and implements, and carry on all the operations of farming. Their two acres of wheat at the Marton School farm yielded 80' bushels this year, llcgularly. they are taken to an orchard, where is done the actual work of pruning, spraying, etc. ' They are taught budding and other phases of horticultural work. Two farm camps are held a year: One, to learn about horses, sheep, and cattle, on Mr. E. Short's farm near Feildiug, where I found on one occasion £20,000 worth of stock placed at their disposal. The lads camp in tents alongside a stream, cook their own meals, and are taught by experts how to handle animals, the various pointa of value, how to breed for wool, constitution, bone, eta., the treatment of animals, fodder crops, manuring, etc.; and at the end of the camp, Mr. Short entertains the whole countryside at the camp, when a competition by the pupils in describing tho characteristics of the stock shown is carried out for valuable prizes given by farmers. At the second camp,, shearing and fencing are taught. The lads do everything, from bringing the sheep in, shearing them, skirting and classing the ileeces, rolling them . up, baling and pressing them, to turning the bales out in a finished condition ready for. shipment. Competent instructors live at the camp, and no trouble or illness has yet been experienced. Instruction, in making reinforced concrete fencing posts, in making cow-bails, rough iron-woik, farm buildings, etc., is given by special teachers, and a two-years' course is a, sound agricultural education for a lad. Three of our students have gone to the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, and the principal (Mr. Potts) has written in the highest terms of the character of the instruction given to them here.

Farmers' Classes. Tho last experiment in agricultural instruction taken up by us was at the Taranaki end of the district. There Mr. Braik released Mr. Browne from a good deal cf his work to deal with the farmers. Ho held classes of adults in tho daytime, when lie discoursed mainly oq grassing and fodder crops, fertilisers and their use, and the treatment of the soil generally. He also undertook to prescribe for farms —his patients wero numerous and his successes ditto. For six months these classes earned £390, and the opinion of the educativo value of his work was enhanced by tie direct financial gain to farmers which followed. Most of the merchants adopted the instructor's mixtures for fertilisers, and the whole scheme is an unbounded success. Tho great virtue in it, however, is that it has reacted on the youths' classes, by gaining the confidence of tho adults and proving to them that book-learning is sometimes able to produce practical results. Your readers will see that tho system depended upon the 00-ordination of the.Teclmical College, the country technical schools, the "secondary classes of the district high schools, the field classes and tlie camps, and tho primary schools and their gardens. Yet the last Education Act sought to destroy this by driving the Technical College from the Board and tho establishing of hybrid committees for other technical schools, ignoring altogether the co-existent system wfiich has been such a . pronounced success in this district. T 'have always been one of tho Hon. J. Allen's admirers, but I will never be able to forget that ho placed the reform of our education ny.'i* _tcm in tho hand? of an official-whosa

personal experience of the working, administration, and control of this important department failed to endow him with the qualifications necessary to rise to the occasion. New Zealand will havo bitter cause to regret most of the changes made in the education law, ajid while I feel sure sweeping amendments will have to be made to it, I deeply regret that such a great opportunity for reform on advanced lines was neglected, and the advice of the men who understood the Dominion's requirements disregarded because tho Minister bad too great a load to carry himself. aud had not the close acquaintances with what was wanted to know what a fatal mistake he was making.

My recent visit to Ohakiine district was mainly to ascertain tho prospects of establishing a system of agricultural instruction'for the great area of country between the Main Trunk line and the Wanganui River, where f some lialfmillion acres of good agricultural and pastoral land exists, • ana there can be no question but that immense benefits can bo conferred upon the community by an elaboration of our system, combined with a special study of weather conditions, soil, and situation. Tho community is rather, scattered at present. but there seems no great difficulty iu tha direction indicated.

I hope that no one will think that this recital of a work it is an honour to be connccted with is egotistical, for ipy relation to it is solely the encouraging of those ■ carrying ou tho 'workj maintaining a cheery optimism in face of discouragements, and loyally standing by the men whose brains are being and have been utilised to give the rising generation help which will enable them to become better citizens, and more fully equipped for the world they will be able to do so much for when they come into their inheritance of manhood.

■ lAs I have. had to write this' in the train, without information . I should like to havo had, any omissions will havo to be overlooked. —F.P.]