King Country Chronicle Saturday, April 8, 1911. RURAL EDUCATION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 351, 8 April 1911, Page 5

King Country Chronicle Saturday, April 8, 1911. RURAL EDUCATION.

When the Chairman of the Auckland Education Board was in Te Kuiti recently he expressed high approval of the movement now gradually spreading over the Dominion for giving agricultural instruction and establishing school gardens. It is interesting to turn to what they are doing the Wairarapa, where at Masterton, Carterton, Gladstone, and other centres, some most excellent work has been done in the provision of scnool gardens and rural courses. The inspectors in the Wellington district express themselves as pleased with the progress made since the rural course was started a year ago, but they do not I overlook the fact that improvements j in methods might very well be made. [ The school gardens, which have proved | bo valuable as object lessons, natur- j ally cannot do more than provide an elementary knowledge, and aa the , inspectors remark, too much should ' not be expected from the primary schools, which have an over-burdened syllabus as it is. Still, the gardens : are valuable, if they only take the j children into the open air and give : them an elementary knowledge of botany. It will not be many years ; now before we have a district high ; school at Te Kuiti. The rapid growth of attendance, and the equally rapid j increase of population generally means j that this will become an acknowledged educational centre as the years go on. It is interesting therefore to note what the inspectors say about the , new departure of giving a rural educational course: "We look upon this ; adoption of the department's extended j rural course .in our district high ; schools as the most, important advance made in our educational system during the last decade. It has alwavs been an anomally that the Dominion depending as it does almost entirely , on agricultural pursuits should have provided so little training specially designed to meet the needs of an agri- , cultural community. We cannot say ; that the course has met with the approval that it has a right to expect in , country districts. In more than one j case considerable opposition on the part of the local committees had to be ; overcome before the course was j adopted. We found moreover the j common fault of expecting too much from the primary school. It was > never pretended for one moment that this course was going to turn out finished practical farmers. The intention as expressly stated by the de- ! partment was to'bring about a more intimate relation than generally speaking at present obtains between the \ course of instruction at district high I school and rural pursuits' and- if the course accomplishes thi3 much then it does all that can be reasonably expected to do in our district high schools. Vocational training in agriculture is the function of the argicultural college or school specially established for that purpose."