EDUCATIONAL AFFAIRS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2132, 15 July 1907, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL AFFAIRS.

INTERESTING RECOMMENDA TIONS AND REPORTS.

At last meeting of the Wanganui Education Board the following recommendations and reports were pre sented:—

INSTRUCTION IN DAIRYING. On the ground that the purposes of dairying instruction are best served where the factories are most deusclv aggregated, the Board has resolved that the instructor, Mr. Browne, will work in the Manawatu District, after, completing his duties in South Taranaki. Experience has shown that the plan of working a group of schools simultaneously involves great laboi on the part of the instructor and the Board. It has been determined, therefore. to adopt a different plan in future. The instructor will work for a fortnight continuous' at each school where classes are taken. This plan will be at once more effective and more economical. Tlie teachers will have an opportunity of studying the subject and carrying on the work after the instructor lias gone, and classes for farmers and factory managers could be held during the evenings. Mr. Browne’s classes have been an unqualified success in Taranaki, and it is hoped that equal success will attend his work ill the Ma.nawatu district. As far as possible work at the schools will be begun immediately after the inspector's annual visit, so that the ordinary school work will he interfered with ns little as possible. Air. Browne will visit his new district presently to organise school classes. In the formation of farmers’ and factory managers' classes he will act in conjunction with Air. Amos, the Board’s supervisor of technical instruction for the Southern District.—G. D. BRAIK Chief Inspector. ARBOR DAY CELEBRATIONS.

In view of the important lessons which the occasion may be made the means of teaching, the Board lias resolved that Arbor Day, the 24tli instant, should be fitly celebrated, Committees will doubtless make such arrangements as will suit local circumstances, but the Board believes that such a programme as the following will prove generally acceptable : 1. Assemble, National Anthem, saluting of the flag. 2. A,, address bv the chairman of the committee and others.

3. Songs and rcctitations by pupils. 4. Pupils present to the school pictures, books, curios, specimens or seedlings. 5. The junior children, under the lady teachers, will ornament the wall; of the class-rooms with the pictures and the senior pupils will proceed to the playground to plant the trees. (All the tools necessary for doing the work should ho to hand.) 6. The chairman is to declare the rest of the day a holiday. The following is the method of trce-plantiii"; recommended by Mr. Grant, the Board’s supervisor of agricultural training:— Dig the hole somewhat larger than the natural spread of the roots. If the soil is poor, some well rotted farmyard manure should be mixed with it, but on no account should fresh farmyard manure or fertilisers containing pothsli be used. In planting, tho roots of all trees should have a line mellow bed of good soil, which should ho firmlv pressed into contact with every rootlet. No air spaces should bo loft and no two roots should bo in contact. After the fiine soil, to a depth of 3 or 4 inches, is firmly pressed in place, the remainder may he thrown looselv on top.

If the early summer is drv, it is a good plan _t<> apply a mulch of traw. hay, weeds, or tea-tree around ho tree. This mulch should he about three inches deep, and should cover an area a little larger than the size of the hole in which tho tree was planted.

Before planting trees in tho school ground, it will ho necessary to have a plan carefully drawn out. The completion of tho plan may ho the work of years, but without a plan no work of anv value can he done. The first, thing to plan for is shelter, and from tho data accumulated ill most schools this will not bo a diliicult: task. It is not a good plan to plant tall growing trees in front of the school, or to plant trees in a position that they will block cut any good views that; limv ho had from tho _ school grounds.—F. PIRANI. Chairman.