WINTER SCHOOL AT HOKITIKA.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 February 1922, Page 1

WINTER SCHOOL AT HOKITIKA.

THIRD WEEK IN MAY

The .Canterbury Progress i League has-, decided to give practical assistance and support to a proposal to hold a Wintei School for farmers, teachers, and students at Hokiika about the third week in May.

For some time the League has been considering very seriously ways and means of giving practical assistance to the farmers of Westland. With that object in view, an attempt was made during last winter to organise a harm School at the Lincoln Agricultural College, Canterbury, and the farmers of Westland were to have been specially invited to attend. Owing however, to many difficulties in the way at the time, the project had to be abandoned. Now a proposal has been brought forward b.v Air H. Belshaw of Grcymouth, who is whole-time tutor for the Workers’ Education Association on the West Coast, that a Farm School should he held at Hokitika for one week during the University and school holidays. Mr Belshaw who was appointed to the West Coast position last year, agrees with the League as to the value of assisting the farmers of the West Coast and to do all that is possible to bring the potentialities of the Coast prominently before the fanners of Canterbury and elsewhere. That is briefly the main consideration underlying the present proposal, and for which the League is prepared to give its pra&tical assistance.

.Mr Ik'lsliaw on behalf of tlie M .It. A. lias already undertaken to organise the tutorial side of the school, leaving it for the League to undertake the rest of the arrangements. The project is practically assured of the support of Canterbury College, including such lecturers as Professors Shelley and Condlid'e, while the Agricultural Department is also expected through its instructors and experts to lend all support possible. The school will lie conducted along the lines of the summer schools which have been held in Canterbury during the last two seasons and which have proved so exceedingly popular. The period of the school would be for one whole week, during which time theoretical and practical instruction would be given in rural education, economics and agricultural science, while opportunity would be afforded to visitors attending the school, to gain first-hand information of the potentialities of Westland, from the view point ol the farmei. .Mr Belshaw who returned to G vermouth on Saturday! intends, visiting Hokitika in the near future, it is fully anticipated that quite a number ot farmers in Canterbury can be persuaded to interest themselves in the project and to attend the school, especially if arrangements can be made to show them round the district during their' stay. With % provable opening of the tunnel this year and the initiation of a through daily express between Christchurch and Hokitika, the projec is well timed and should serve to arouse and stimulate interest in tanning pursuits on the Coast. Altogether the proposition is most hopeful and encouraging. _