AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 457, 26 March 1890, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

INSTRUCTION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Auckland, At the Newton Schools Com, March 20. g held in the Newton West School last evening, a circular was received jlrom the University College. Similar copies have been forwarded to all School Committees and teachers of the Auckland Education District.

The circular states that in order to encourage the teaching of Agricultural Science in the primary schools, prizes will be offered for competition amongst the schools of the Auckland Provincial District, on the following terms : 1. The competition will be open to scholars in the fourth, fifth and sixth standards. 2. The examination will probably be held in March, 1891. 3. At least six prizes will be given, but the number may be increased if desirable. 4. The examination will be upon the subjects specified in Part I. only of the syllabus of Agricultural Science, which embraces the parts of plants, stems, leaves, roots, flowers and fruit (with special reference to fruit trees and agricultural plants), fertilisation of flowers and formation of seed, storage of food in seeds, roots, etc., germination, composition of plants, the meaning of the terms organic and inorganic, elements and compounds, outlines of chemistrv of air and water, how plants obtain their food, function of the leaf, decomposition of carbonic acid, leaf green, importance of water to the plant, absorption of food by the roots, action of root hairs, the soil, how soils are formed, decay of rocks, chemical constituent of soils, subsoil, humus, and the soil as a source oi plant food.

I lb is nob expected that the subjects will I be treated in any but the simplest manner. It is urgent, however, that every point should be illustrated by objects or by simple experiment!, so that, though the knowledge imparted may not be deep, it •nay yet be real and thorough, and so may serve as a foundation upon which further knowledge may be built in after, years. The instruction in agriculture iu the primary school must not be regarded as instruction in practical farming, bub only as the kind of preparatory education which will be most serviceable to those whose future life will be spent, in the cultivation of the soil. At the same time it will be well to take as many illustrations as possible from the actual process of farming, with which the children may be familiar. The proposed effort to encourage the teaching of agricultural science in the primary schools was strongly approved of by the Committee, and it is hoped that it will be heartily taken up by the various schools.