AGRICULUTURAL HIGH SCHOOLS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 5 December 1913, Page 4

AGRICULUTURAL HIGH SCHOOLS.

The Education Committee of tho Houso of Representatives dissents from the opinion of the Education Commission that Agricultural High Schools should be established in agricultural or pastoral districts, as itapproves the continuation and development of the present system of teaching agricultural subjects. We confess our inability to follow the reasoning of the Committee on this point. Every teacher, every inspector, every education board 'admits that the rural course at our District High Schools leads to nowhere; that it is almost a waste of public money; that after it gives the child a taste for the soil it leaves him to complete his education in either the Technical School or the College, which is impossible. How does the EuucaHon Committee propose "continuing and developing the present system of teaching agricultura ["subjects?" Can it be done in conjunction with the work at tho present District High Schools? . We doubt it. Is it possible to do it at the Technical Schools ? We are afraid not. How, then, can it be "done, unless "by the establishment of Agricultural High Schools? The Education Committed has failed to appreciate the immense importance of this subject to rural districts, and its ambiguous finding does not do justice to a body of men . who are presumably possessed of-expert knowledge.