EDUCATION CONFERENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2093, 30 May 1907, Page 2

EDUCATION CONFERENCE.

THE SPHERE OF THE COLONIES

‘‘EXPERIMENTAL LABORATORIES.”

AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION

United Press Association—Copyright, . LONDON, May 28.

Mr. S. L. Buther, member'of the Hodse of Commons for Cambridge University, presiding at tho Education Conference, said it had -, long been recognised that the colonies were the great experimental laboratories of the Empire in social and political matters. They were believed to have the same intellectual nature as the Greek colonies which were the workshops of the Hellenic mind, re-creat-ing material from the Mother State and sending it back renewed. Sir Horace Plunkett opened the discussion on the methods of agricultural education.

Mr John West and Mr Tate, Victoria,delivered' speeches which largely ranged around Australian experi-

Sir Philip Magnuss said that tho Imperialisation of the of the system of technical education was a prime essential. It was possible to do much by interchange of students and the publication of such reports as New South Wales has recently issued. Mr. West gave a vigorous account of tho influence of technical training on farmers in building up the Australian butter industry. English; farmers were suffering from a lack of similar opi>ortunitv. The cure of the cotton cushion and the scale disease in oranges of California bv the introduction of the South Australian vedali cardinalis showed the possibilities of inter-imperial diffusion of technical knowledge. He gave a detailed account of Victoria s ‘coordinated scheme of agricultural education. Australian experience proved that a sound general education must precede technical education. References to the Agricultural High School aroused general interest.

,YN IMPERIAL BUREAU. LONDON, May 28

Professor Sadler, in tho Morning Post, suggests an Imperial bureau of education, at an annual cost of £IO,OOO, including a comprehensive technical libraray and carefully edited year book. He proposes the bureau should include a representative of each of the coionies, whose salary would be paid by the colony, and forming a department of the secretariat resolved upon at the Imperial Conference, directly this organisation became independent of the Colonial Office,