CAMP SCHOOLS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2148, 2 August 1907, Page 4

CAMP SCHOOLS.

In New South Wales a now departure in primary education is the rural camp school for city boys. Speaking to the representative of the Sydney Morning Herald, the organising officer, Mr. A. E. Cradick, referring to the work accomplished by the camp -schools, said that the city boys were not taken to the country to be lectured. They should be told only those facts which were not patent to the eye. The history and the development of the South Coast district, given as a lesson by Mf. P. F. Quick (superintendent of the Berry Stud Farm), and the practical demonstration by Mr. J. Woolly (stud manager of Coolangatta), would be given on the day of arrival at Berry, and were intended as a preparation for the work of the session. Boys were required to plot out their daily itinerary, and to make connected notes on what they saw. Masters were expected to simply direct observation and to freely discuss topics both with the unit as a whole and with individual boys. It was not intended that the work of tho camp schools should consist of an incoherent set of lessons. The camp school was simply an al fresco school, on which the comfort as well as the health of the camp life so closely depended upon a master’s successful study of the boy, and his own character and conduct that tho ethical ideal immediately dominated the civic state of the camp community. In tho camp schools a boy lived his “civics” lessons as a citizen of tho camp society. He was ap honorary membor of the Berry School of Arts; the courtesies he received from the farmers in his daily visits to them he reciprocated by entertaining his country friends at his camp concerts, and at his Sunday “at homes.” Ho made a practical use of the post and telegraph office as institutions of the State, and he broadened his conception of Australian-National life by his intercourse with the country people, and through a correspondence brought about by his introduction to them. His mental atmosphere now became more Australian, where before it had been metropolitan. Every lesson of the class room could be put into practice. His chemistry would help him at the cheese and butter factories, and in his study of soil crops. There would be scope for his geology, botany, meteorology, his geography, and his history. Domestic hygiene was illustrated in his camp life. There were handy illustrations of the mechanical powers, while his written composition was tested by the neatness and coherence with which he rapidly jotted his notes down on a properly headed and dated page. Drawing, as a means of expression, could be made the fullest use of. There was a unique opportunity for child-study. The camp schools allowed a boy to specialise according to his natural bent, so we had no reason to be disappointed simply because every boy could not be interested in every subject. Each boy at the. Berry camp school could be interested in some useful branch of study, and he could be happy, too, while engaged in it.