Sir John Gorst on Rural Education.

Manawatu Herald, 8 May 1897, Page 3

Sir John Gorst on Rural Education.

« Sir J. Gorst, vice-president of the Council, attended a prize distribution to the pupils of the evening classes conducted at the National Schools in the village of Girton, near Cambridge, on the 20th March. Sir J. Gorst, after some local congratulations, said that not only in Girton bat in a great many of the villages of Cambridgeshire there was a very decided movement taking place in favour of -the better education of the people. Still they had a great deal of lee-way to make up. They heard a great deal about agricultural depression, and they found that the people engaged in agricultural pursuits were unable to compete with the nations of the continent of Europe, who provided them with many of those thing 3 which they might just as well grow at home. As an example, Sir J. Gorst cited the financial improvement in Denmark, which had been supplying England with eggs and butter which could as well be grown at home. This had be inquired into by gentlemen who were not educational faddists. They were people who were only looking to improve the material prosperity of the people. What did they find. They found in Denmark that the people attributed their prosperity entirely to the education received by the peasantry in the high schools. What did they suppose people learned in those high schools ? They did not learn merely teohnical education, but history and literature and languages ; and all i their teaching, it was said, was • imbued with a strong religious spirit. It was not to the technical education but to the general education which that peasantry received in those high tchools that these Danish people themselves attributed the extraordinary prosperity of their country. (Hear, hear.) Turning to France, Sir J. Gorst said that there every boy and girl was kept at school until 13 years of age, and besides the money which the French Government spent in education generally, they spent £182,000 especially upon Agricultural Education . They made agricultural teaching obligatory in every primary school in the rural districts, and, besides the educational instruction given in these primary tchools, they had instituted schools of agriculture, higher schools, and lower schools. They had all over the oountry what were called practioal schools, into which the children were taken after they left school, and where they were taught the practical processes of agriculture; and they also had itinerant teachers who went •bout giving the best sort of instruct tion that could be given. They had, again, what they called " example Slots," which were little gardens or elds scattered over France in which practical example and instruction were given in agricultural processes. They bad also stations all over France for practical research in those various institutions. They gave instruction as to the oulture of fish, and as to the cultivation of silkworms, and all matters connected with the industries of the country. If foreigners could do that, why should not the English ? How was it possible for them in England, in Ireland, or in Scotland, to compete In the production of the various food articles with their foreign rivals unless they were at least, as well instructed as they ? There was no defect in the English boy or girl as compared with the Dane or the French. On the contrary, the intelligence of the English, and of the other peoples who inhabited the British Isles was at least as great as any other people - (hearhear)— and it was nothing but defective rural education in the United Kingdom that kept them back in the race. How was that to be remedied ? The first thing was that the people of the country themselves should learn those facts, and have the strong desire for the improvement of rural education. The first step whould be to raise that age at which children remained in the schools. That in* volved sacrifice, for the parents of children liked at an early age to have their early earnings— and God knew, the people of this country were

not so well off that they could do without the little earnings that their children brought in. But if they were going to take the children out of the schools at 10 or 11, and employ them from that time onward in cheap child labour on farms and in rural industries, then they could not compete with Danes and Frenchmen. Another thing needed was organisation, which meant that, instead of every little village school standing alone, every school should be grupcd with other?, and there should be some central authority which might do for all the schools that which it was impossible for them to do for themselve3 standing alone. They had something of that already in that country in the technical instruction committee of the County Council.