A GREAT WANT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 180, 3 September 1909, Page 2

A GREAT WANT.

In some parts of the world where agriculture is tile main pursuit of the po°,;i lation it occupies its right iilace in the general scheme of cducati.Mi. Here in New Zealand, as the New Zeal:-,ml Times pertinently points out, we spend s;oivs of times more money in the educati;;, of lawyers than we 'do on the t;aiuii:of farmers. The essential woo leiliiaddlncss of this may be realised !'iv ' one fact-—that in the' whole lem-th nm breadth of the Dominion there" is urn a scientific agriculturist of native bir.i ' trained in New Zealand. Our Vvellinton contemporary goes on to s.'ay:—l; we require a specialist in almost anv brauch of agriculture we have to send away for one. Tile number of men wi.rking on the laud of New Zealand for n living who have an expert knowledge of any single department of their industry is pitifully meagre. The number who conduct their business on rule-of-tliunib lines, who neither k:iow nor care what tlie chemist has to tell thi'in or tlie biologist to show tliem, is (listvaetinglv large. Indifference rules the average farmer with iron hand. Ileive the labor of the educationalist must hij closely identified with that of the experimentalist and demonstrator. Th" fanner must be made to see the value of research—lo adopt its lessons to liis environment. There is a distinct gleam of hope for (be future in the work now being performed in the elementary schools, where the children are bein« instructed in tlie rudiments of agriculture. The rising generation will be mere receptive than the present, and not content, tin Sfr. Mackenzie says we are to-day, to "fumble away twenty-five years behind other places." And what :e commentary it is on tile intelligence of our people when a Minister of the Crown can say that "in New Zeahrul there is really no place where a young man could be sent with any certainty of 'receiving proper instruction in farming." Thus a land, dependent on agriculture, ''turns out" men equipped for every calling except the one in which most of its population is engaged! It is far different in Canada and the United States. There the great agricultural colleges and universities are the resort of thousands of young men, anxious for instruction in the higher branches of knowledge relatinu to their industry. And the resul' " ! < seen in this—that lands which were long ago looked I'iiiui as useless are now the granary of the world. Th" question is not wlic'lier New Zc'ii-I (~,„ aii'nrd to go i"i. but whether she can allure! lo .sliii-'