AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 262, 15 March 1911, Page 5

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

A FORWARD MOVEMENT IN TIMARU. By Telegraph.—Pres» AjMoowtioa, Timaru, Last Night. The Education Board to-day received the report of the agricultural instruc> tors. It states that last year at the distriet high school 40 boys and 48 girls took instruction in agriculture. This year only 26 boys and 23 girls were enrolled at two schools, and none at -the third. The majority of the pupils' work is for matriculation, and agriculture does not fit in. They cannot graft agriculture on to the ordinary secondary course. Mr. Brown therefore recommends that a resident Continuation school be established. He visited twenty primary schools where gardening and elementary agriculture was taught. A conference was held last Saturday of the instructors, inspectors, headmasters of district high schools, and members of the Board, at which it was resolved that it was advisable to make agriculture a chief subject at district high schools; to ask the Department to modify the conditions of capitation for agriculture in standard VI; that boards be asked to make more liberal provision for agriculture in scholarship regulations; that district high schools adopting the course in agriculture should have an, assistant taking special nterest in the subejet; and that it was desirable South Canterbury should have a boarding school an institution devoted mainly to agricultural education on the lines of the Australian Agricultural Continuation Schools, with land for experimental and demonstration work. The Board to-day discussed and adopted the instructors' report and the recommendations of the conference. It was agreed that a'grieuJtural instruction cannot be successful under present conditions, - among the obstacles being the coiservatism of the University Senate. It was explained that the suggested continuation school could prepare boys to enter the ordinary secondary course who now do not go to high schools. It was suggested that the Timaru High School Board should provide the boarding school recommended.