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Hokitika Guardian, 4 May 1925, Page 2

Hj'kakino on the .subject of ‘"Rural Education” at the annual meeting of the Oxford Branch of th :* Farmers’ Union, .Mr H. <". I). Somerset said that teachers should come into close association with the public and secure a mutual approach between the cdueat'.cn system and those whom it must ailest. '1 he <Vs trust, of farmers to such education as had li.-eii offered was probably due to the wrong typo of teacher. The hoys from the farm were the licit to educate for rural pursuits, not the least- because they had some ideas of the farmers' difficulties. Ho

urged t.ho dignity of the farmers' calill~. and farmers should recognise that, ami not he satisfied t-ill they had all the social advantages and facilities of the inhabitants of the town. Tt took five or six years to become a doctor or a lawyer, hut. the calling of a farmer was the research of a lifetime. All the comforts and amenities of town life must 1 c claimed hv tho rural resident, and the proper cure for the farmers' .disabilities lay in education. Education, he said, was rot the “driving in” of extraneous matter, hut the “drawing out” of the child’s latent powers. If his powers were “drawn out” to the full he would fear nothing. It was not necessarv that the child should know everything, nor much of everything, but that be should “know how to find it when fm wanted it.” Quoting from and describing the svstems of education of the Greeks, the Chinese and the

-Maoris, lie showed education must he brought into true relationship with its environment. Education should not t>e a painful process. If it were there was fumething wrong with it. It should be a natural development and as painless a-s talking i.r walking. Every child ]ios=sessod the germ of progress. and the speaker tra'-ed the development of the child through the vnriuos racial stages. Instead of .sending the brainy hoys to the town to study law or engineering, they should receive in the country that training that would give them an urge for rural pursuits. The lest brains .should In' kept in the country to promote that industry that surpassed every other industry. The syllabus should he contrived that the general edaration provided would enable the country pupils to pm eed to the university in the usual (nurse. lie oml hasi-sod the ne ossity if education for leisure, and an education system that did not provide for that was not worth the. name. The school should he the community centre, all social activities should revolve around it. The farmer should have a new conception of hi.s calling, llis suns would remain in the country to receive the heritage that was liis by tight namely. the farm- of his father.