THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1907. A COUNTRY SCHOOL FOR CITY CHILDREN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8357, 14 February 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1907. A COUNTRY SCHOOL FOR CITY CHILDREN.

The interesting and almost unique experiment of a country school for city children made by the city of Manchester is described, by Mr L, Smith, in Macmillan's Magazine. On a site of five acres, secured at a peppercorn rent, at Knolls Green, in Cheshire, sixteen miles from Manchester, a building was erected, containing a school room for two classes of forty each, two dormitories each for forty beds, a dining-room, a kitchen, and a scullery, rooms for the teachers and permanent staff, and a covered play-shed, with, of course, a large garden for culinary and educational needs, and a large playing-field. The school hours are almost the same as in the city. In the morning the lessons are on ordinary lines, with nature-teaching accentuated; in the afternoon the instruction is devoted to nature alone, and the lessons are given in the wood, or at the farm, or in the garden among the flowers and fruit. The school is open from April to December, and batches of eighty boys and eighty girls go alternately and stay a fortnight, each set of forty or eighty being drawn from one school, so that their own teacher can accompany them. During the three years that it has been at work, 800 children have been received each season. Recently tents for an additional eighty '.have been set up, and a permanent dormitory for forty is to be built. The buildings cost £2,200, the furnishing £4OO, and £2OO was expended on the garden and grounds. Both boys and girls share in the domestic work, and the accompanying teacher gives the main part of the instruction. Upon staff, food, etc., the committee expends about £SOO a year. Half of this sum is, i-aised by, subscription. Seven

shillings is paid by the parents or friends for each child, and, deducting one shilling for railway fare, the remainder makes up the other half of the annual expenditure.